F1 Sneaker "Canon Renault 1991"

This is one of the holy grails of motorsport footwear, a licensed Williams team sneaker from 1991, the height of the Canon Williams Renault era. The team was called Canon Williams at the time, with Renault supplying the engines, and the shoe carries all three names, Williams, Renault and Canon, as a piece of official teamwear from one of the most dominant operations in Formula 1 history. This was the period of Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese and the FW14, machinery that helped define early-1990s grand prix racing.

The detail that makes the shoe legendary is on the bottom. Molded into the outsole is a full Formula 1 car, complete with sidepods, a front wing, a rear wing and wheel hubs, a piece of design ambition that goes far beyond slapping a logo on a trainer. Someone decided the sole of a sneaker should be a race car, and built it. The Canon Williams sneaker came in low and high-top versions across the 1990s, and nearly thirty-five years later the surviving pairs have become true grails for collectors of motorsport teamwear, objects from a time when a Formula 1 team would commission a sneaker with this much intent. For an archive built to preserve the shoes that history forgets, a Williams sneaker with a grand prix car on its sole is close to a perfect entry.