To be passionate about anything – an object, an idea – is to understand its origin, to fully immerse your being in its history and present state to the point of absolute, unrestricted comprehension. Nike Air is a concept rooted in the fundamental laws of science; air won’t flatten or disappear, nor will it tear or change its composition. Nike Air serves as the metaphorical pen that rewrote history; it is the result of harnessing the most vital element of life known to man into a midsole cushioning system that revolutionized the footwear industry and sport of running over the course of three storied decades. Continue reading for a thorough look back at some classic Nike artifacts, technology and history.
An aerospace engineer named Frank Rudy approached Nike with the idea of an air-infused cushioning system. Combined with Rudy’s radical notion of captured air, Nike produced the Nike Air Tailwind in 1979 after months of research and development in a top-secret facility in Exeter, New Hampshire, so clandestinely organized that absurd rumors about athlete-cloning surfaced. Soon after, Nike Air was implemented in athletic shoes engineered for other sports; the Nike Air Force 1 was the first basketball shoe with Nike Air technology, and the Nike Air Trainer was the first multi-purpose athletic trainer that featured Air. Suddenly being ‘light on your feet’ was becoming more than a figure of speech.
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[via John K. @ SneakerNews.com]
