About

Nike Air More Uptempo: the letters sit where the air is

Most sneakers carry their technology underneath and their logo on top. The Air More Uptempo from 1996 reversed that and wrote the word AIR in huge letters across the flank, so large that hardly any shoe remains. Designer Wilson Smith drew that scale from pop art, graffiti on train cars and an architectural project he had worked on. The mid-1990s was, as he put it, a time that wanted to be larger than life.

The best part is the placement, because it’s not a graphic whim. Smith placed the letters exactly where the air pocket in the sole runs, so the A, I and R indicate what’s underneath. On the inside of the shoe AIR is therefore written in the opposite direction: the letters follow the pocket, not the eye. Look at the photos of the sole edge and you’ll see those chambers return as separate transparent windows, with a small swoosh in a circle on the heel.

That the letters are the canvas is proven by the range itself. Versions replace AIR with other words, from city names like NYC to diverse themes, without the shoe losing its identity. The shape has become the typography.

The shoe gained its status on the feet of Scottie Pippen, who wore it during the season in which the Chicago Bulls won 72 games and at the 1996 Olympic Games. Pippen himself was initially unconvinced and called the design rather overwhelming when he first saw it. Thirty years later that is exactly the reason the shoe still exists.

In Nike basketball of the 1990s the Uptempo stands alongside the Air Foamposite, which displayed its technology in a molded shell, while the Air Max 95 in those same years showed the air in windows. Three ways to boast about the same thing. This one just shouts it out.

On this page you can see which versions of the Nike Air More Uptempo are hottest now according to the Hypescore, from what price they can be found and in how many shops they are in stock.