crooked tongues magazine News Features

Big windows are nothing new. In fact, they've been part of local lore since we clocked sports store previews in 1991, and deserve the same kind of street level reverence as the AM 90 - another Max that seems to get more Euro-love than it does in the States. Next year sees a Max 90 Flywire/Maxim 1-style remake, which we're imagining will be accompanied with a spot of history as part of its promotional push. We hope so anyway, as this model was neglected during the History Of Air shenanigans, when it's surely more sellable than the admittedly brilliant but tougher to pull off (figuratively and literally) Air Max '93. But that's in the past, and the last twelve months has seen a steady flow of good colours on this onetime high street staple. The beauty of the BW is that it never really needed a remix...like arch rivals Reebok, and their Classic, it could be released seasonally until hell froze over without requiring any fundamental cosmetic alterations.

Where the 180 got the Cronenberg-directed TV spots and pre-release hype that had us thinking we were about to enter the next generation of shoe innovation after 1987's Air, what we got was a fresh, but expensive, and hardly groundbreaking addition to the Air technology we were living and breathing at the time; Big Windows were the model that truly captured the aesthetic of the early '90s - from everymen to playground style kings, they never seemed particularly scarce despite a pretty hefty price tag. Boyz II Men even opted to wear their Persians (a big road choice) with shorts and suit jackets...not even the most pseudo-eccentric Rapidshare rapper would attempt that in 2009. Teals were good too, and by '93, the grey/white/blacks were the safe option - not a head turner, but solid enough to stave off any shoe mockery from peers, and bland enough to hit the saleracks. We hope the shoe's story on European shoes is documented when the time for a big budget retrospective arises.

Enough of the wistful memories. This makeup, which is set to hit the Crooked Store in a month's time is, according to the tag in the shoe, a women's variation (notably, the ladies have had the lion's share of recent colourways), that we grabbed in bigger sizes. Emerald green, black and white is always a winner for us.