Nike began as a running shoe brand. Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman partnered up at the University of Oregon to become the juggernaut we know and wear today. Their path to greatness is littered with tons of ad campaigns, amazing technologies, and shoe models that we don’t ever see or hear about anymore.

Take a gander through any Eastbay catalog from the ’90s and you’ll see sneakers that most likely haven’t felt the pavement in years, although not from lack of desire and popularity from fans. In most cases, many ’90s Nike models would be expensive to reproduce today i.e. the Nike Air Command Force High (which actually did come back finally). Manufacturing costs, inflation and other factors contribute to Nike’s decision on the price that consumers are asked to pay.
Nike is a business at the end of the day; a business that has a pretty good idea of what people will pay for though some have argued that they’ve been getting less realistic in the last few years. In some other cases, Nike may no longer have the mold to bring them back in their original form—a model like the Nike Air Max 120 would be somewhat difficult to bring back in it’s original state (though there are rumors of a retro coming).
One of Nike’s most successful technologies, Zoom Air, has been going through a bit of resurgence in popularity. While Nike Basketball models with Nike Air technology have been getting retroed for the last couple of years, it seems as though many of the classic runners of the era are long gone. I think it’s time for those models to come back in a big way, and I think NikeLab could be the key to doing that.
Here is where NikeLab comes in. As we’ve seen throughout this year, Nike has been no stranger to bringing back some classic models in special ways, whether through fusing them with another modern model à la the Roshe LD-1000 or altering a core part of the shoe in a unique way, like the “Big Teeth” version of the Cortez. Many of these concepts were introduced to us through NikeLab, a new creative concept that takes Nike models and applies some type of innovation that rethinks the shoe for modern sensibilities.
NikeLab has collaborated with reputable brands like Fragment Design, Pigalle, and Sacai on new and old Nike models, giving them fresh ideas while still maintaining the original DNA that made them so popular. Not every single model from NikeLab has been amazingly designed or well received, but I think the concept of NikeLab is great for pushing the mindset of the sneaker design industry forward especially when they draw from the history of Nike. It would be interesting to see NikeLab’s modernized take on the Zoom Spiridon or Zoom Alpha, while still maintaining the heritage and nostalgia factor that made those shoes so great.
Some shoes contain elements from other great Nike designs, rather than creating new ones and most times, it just leaves us wanting the original shoe to return. Other times, Nike brings shoes back in an almost original form, but they’ll add something unnecessary to it and then the shoe is could be viewed as tarnished or overdone (I’m looking at you Air Max Terra Sertig). The thing is, it’s not like Nike has been having problems keeping Zoom Air relevant.

Maybe someone from Nike will see this and get the ball rolling but maybe I just don’t understand the industry. There really may be no type of profit in bringing back those classic runners. Hell, a guy can dream. Specifically, I’ll be dreaming of some size 13 Zoom Spiridon’s.

20 year old guy, figuring out life day by day. I love music, sneakers, movies, and videogames, with interests spread over a variety in things so I can talk about a little of everything.