About

Nike Air Force

In 1982 Nike put an air unit inside a basketball shoe. Bruce Kilgore drew it, the name came from Air Force One, the aircraft of the American president, and it was the first basketball shoe with Nike Air under heel and midfoot. Exactly where a landing hits hardest.

Look at the sole, not the upper

The upper is deliberately calm: taut leather, a perforated toe for ventilation, a Swoosh on the panel. The invention sits underneath. The cupsole is built from a single piece of rubber and carries a circular pattern under the ball of the foot, the pivot circle, meant to let you turn on hardwood without your sole catching. That detail is still on there more than forty years later, while almost nobody wears this shoe on a court anymore.

Invented twice

Nike stopped production in 1984, and there the story should have ended. In Baltimore a few retailers refused to go along. They kept ordering, got Nike to produce it again and were allowed to build their own versions, the start of what came to be called the Color of the Month. So a written-off basketball shoe became the longest-running model in the catalog. In New York it picked up a second name along the way: Uptowns.

One name, several beasts

Air Force has long since stopped being a single model. The Air Force 1 Low is what most people mean; the Air Force 1 Mid keeps the ankle strap of the original high; the Air Force 1 Shadow doubles up layers and Swooshes into an exaggerated version of itself. The Air Force Max and the Air Force 270 pull the name toward visible Air and a completely different ride. Same family name, very different beasts.

On this page you can see which versions of the Nike Air Force are running hottest right now according to the Hypescore, from what price they’re available, and how many shops have them in stock.