About

Nike Cortez

The Cortez is older than the brand on it. Bill Bowerman designed the shoe when his company still sold other makers’ shoes, and when the paths split each camp kept a version: at Nike it became the Cortez, at the old Japanese partner a twin brother runs under a different name to this day. The breakthrough year was 1972, making this the oldest model in the brand’s catalog.

De rand is geknipt als met een kartelschaar

Look at the edge of the lacing panel and of the swoosh: they are not neatly finished but cut in a zigzag, as if pinking shears had gone through them. That is not wear but the model’s handwriting, found on every leather version. It does not fray, and it distinguishes a Cortez at a glance from any other low white shoe.

Een zaag onder de zool, een wig erin

The underside revolves around two of Bowerman’s inventions. The outsole carries a sawtooth profile along its full length that you can see undulate from the side. And inside lies a continuous foam wedge that raises the heel — in 1972 an innovation that made running on asphalt bearable, now the reason the shoe feels more comfortable than its flat contemporaries. The toe tapers to a point, the heel tab bears the brand name in block letters.

Van de baan naar de boulevard

The Cortez found its second life in Los Angeles: for decades the staple shoe of West Coast street culture, and via the white pair with red and royal blue also worn by a famous film hero who ran across America in them. The model therefore carries a double charge, sporting heritage and street legend at once, and few shoes share that. The oldest in the house, and still not overtaken.

Zijn leeftijdsgenoten

The mirror image at the competitor is the Adidas SL 72, from the same sporting year and with the same brief: light and subdued. Within the brand the Blazer is the indoor contemporary, and the Air Max 1 fifteen years later begins the next chapter of the same running line.

On this page you can see which versions of the Nike Cortez are hottest now according to the Hypescore, the starting prices, and how many shops have them in stock.