"We wanted to create the unexpected"
- 21 March 2024
For more than three decades, Air Max has been an iconic Nike platform, delivering distinct innovations and styles and the sensation of walking on air. It stands the test of time and continues to inspire Nike-only creations that both serve the athlete and drive Nike forwards. But how do you renovate an icon? To disrupt the status quo and re-envision the future of Air Max, we developed a revolutionary new configuration of Air paired with a bold, sleek design: the Nike Air Max Dn. Here, Nike Product Director Reggie Hunter gives an inside look into how the shoe was born—and the work it took to pull if off.
It was 2021 and I was sitting in the car park of this huge fairgrounds lot way up in Washington state. I'd just got my first Covid vaccine, and my arm was still stinging when my phone rang.
It was a close Nike teammate calling to talk about an innovation for Nike Air Max with an opportunity to change the trajectory of the line. The 15 minutes I was mandated to stay in place turned into 30 minutes, then 40, with the charged momentum of our conversation.
We'd suddenly received a green light from senior Nike innovation leaders for a new Air Max direction, and they had big expectations. The marching orders were basically, "We need the next big thing. We'll put the best team against it. Go figure it out and, oh yeah, you've got one year to pull it off instead of two or three, and you're going to be working from home through Covid to do it".
You know what? I was energised by it. Any time you have all the leaders high up at Nike aligned and unlocking resources, it's an exciting moment. And we were ready. We'd identified lots of opportunities for Air Max. The biggest challenge that we saw was, how can we do everything that we want to do? How can we really move the needle?
"We'd suddenly received a green light from senior Nike innovation leaders for a new Air Max direction, and they had big expectations".
When you look back at where Air Max started in the late '80s, the technology was usually a smaller, visible Air-Sole, encapsulated in foam. When Nike designed a "window" to this functional component, it created a new desire for shoes.
That desire felt bottomless. By the early 2000s, demand for Air Max was skyrocketing. Nike had so much innovation and newness, and it was also the first time that retros were brought back with a level of consistency and depth. People gorged on Air Max. The trend was to go bigger and bigger with the Air-Soles, which meant that by the 2020s, some people started to complain that our shoes felt bulky, heavy, not really what you would expect Air to feel like. The figurative bubble was bursting. We knew that we needed to reset in a sharp, focused way and create new innovation that we could lead a new generation forwards with.
Pressurised air flows freely between the Air Max Dn's four tubes—this allows air to respond to your every step and deliver a smooth transition.
For us, it meant going back to the roots of Air. I think what made Air Max originally so special was that it was developed for performance running, and those shoes felt responsive and were low to the ground. They looked fast, sleek, sophisticated. We wanted to revive this look and feel—and that was how the Nike Air Max Dn was born.
In the Air Max Dn, you immediately notice the tubular Air language of the shoe, and that in itself is a revival; it first appeared in our Max shoes in the early 2000s, where it went below the radar at the time because people were really into the Air Max '95s and '97s. We'd seen a younger generation of versed sneakerheads who know their Nike history start to discover the old tubular styles again. And that was perfect, because we wanted to design a shoe for the new generation, give them a version of Air Max to call their own.
This Nike Air Max entered the marketplace in 2002, introducing tubular Max Air, but the clear rubber outsole was less flexible, especially with the Air-Sole locked up in foam.
We started with a whole new system of Air. The Air Max Dn is our first dual-chamber, four-tubed Nike Air unit. The two chambers each have two tubes, and the back tubes are tuned to a higher pressure than the front, which helps propel you from heelstrike to toe-off. That's the "dynamic motion" in Dn—that the Air unit can interact with your foot pushing down on it and help fluidly transition you forwards. Your body is the load that forces this response out of the bag.
We knew we had to be just as bold, disruptive and innovative through the rest of the shoe and make sure each component complemented and reflected the dynamic motion of the Air unit. I think that really comes through in the upper material—the haptic, textured overlay looks fast and sleek, begs to be touched. It's unexpected, and that's what we wanted to get back to. Creating a new shoe language and aesthetic that moved away from the big bubble to a form that could push the edges and create a conversation. Because I think the worst thing that can happen for a shoe is that no one's talking about it.
I have always loved sneakers. Growing up, my parents spent a fixed amount of money on shoes, and that did not include anything that would give me street cred or shoes that I necessarily wanted. I had an older friend who got all the best shoes, and when he grew out of them, he handed them down to me.
The first pair of shoes that I bought myself— with money from Christmas and doing errands around the house—were Nike Air Tech Challenge IVs from the Andre Agassi line. When I put them on, I thought, "These shoes are incredible and they're gonna take me to places I haven't been". I was so proud to wear them.
My passion for shoes led me to work at a boutique sneaker shop in my small town in the UK from 14 until I was 23. The coolest part was discovering culture from all these older peers who were listening to new music, talking about films, and learning more about fashion and footwear from around the world. They'd take me on trips to London to go to Nike Town and see the best of the new offerings. That feeling of seeing something new, something covetable, something inspiring always stuck with me. It's part of the reason I got into this job. There's nothing like creating something that can instantly elicit an emotional and personal response.
Attitude, confidence, possibility—I want people to wear this shoe and feel those feelings.
I think back to that fairgrounds lot in 2021, ending the Air Max call, shaking off the jab in my arm, and I really had no idea of the work that was ahead. The Air Max Dn team joked early on about how many emails we would share about this project. I think the shoe took five times more work than we'd ever imagined.
What makes it all worthwhile to me is imagining a kid picking up an Air Max Dn. I think back to pulling on those Agassi Challenges—the attitude and confidence, the feeling of possibility those shoes gave me. I want people to wear this shoe and feel those feelings. Feel the newness and freshness. Make it their own.
That's the ultimate goal, really: that I've helped create a shoe that could resonate, a shoe that could inspire someone and spark a new fascination with Nike sneakers. A shoe that will take you to places you haven't been.