Air Max 1 "Cherrywood"

The Cherrywood is widely considered the holy grail of Air Max 1 collaborations, and the story behind it is part of the legend. It was the fifth and final piece of Patta’s 2009 fifth-anniversary series, but where the other four arrived on schedule, the Cherrywood did not drop until March 2010, delayed so long that people began to doubt it would come out at all. Dutch artist Parra designed it, covering the shoe in burgundy suede with asymmetrical chenille swooshes, burgundy on one side and blue on the other, over a clean white midsole.

The scarcity is real. Only a small run reached the public, commonly cited around 258 pairs, which turned an already special collaboration into something close to mythical. For Air Max 1 collectors the Cherrywood is the pair, the one most people will never own and many have never seen in person, with resale figures that climbed into the thousands and kept going. It brought together three forces that each carry weight on their own, Patta as the boutique, Parra as the artist and the Air Max 1 as the canvas, and the combination produced a shoe whose reputation has only grown. For an archive built to document the most significant releases in the category, the Cherrywood is close to required, the rare grail whose story of delay, scarcity and design ambition is as memorable as the shoe itself.