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We're surprised it took this long for a Nike Air Force 1 Foamposite to materialise. Nike are masters of taking the consumer out their comfort zone in the quest for comfort at performance level. When the Nike Foamposite 1 dropped in 1997, it was rapturously received by players who'd been following Penny Hardaway's deeply progressive shoe line. This was a year when Nike used Zoom to push the envelope. References to shoes of old in the designs? No way. In a couple of years, the brand brought sneaker design to the level it should've been. Bear in mind that in 'Terminator' lore, this was the year that Skynet was meant to go online. The Foamposite 1 looked like a shoe should have done in 1997. Some deemed it ugly - that opinion still remains. It's certainly not an easy design.

In the UK we recall ballers losing their minds over it, but the pricetag being prohibitive—Stateside, it's still deified. Check the queues outside Harlem's House of Hoops the night prior to recent metallic releases. Over here? We could have picked up pairs at the Oxford Street branch days after they dropped. Then again, our fever for plain leisure shoes with terrace appeal is met with similar bafflement over there. Swings and roundabouts. One man's Jordan is another man's K-Swiss Stripe Shifter. We like difficult shoes.

Tim Hardaway endorsements took in Flights, Bakins and the weird but enduring Air Raid, but Penny Hardaway got the next-level designs. Air Penny 1 and 2 weren't too out-there. Effective, but hardly the illmatic freakshow of Jason Kidd's or Gary Payton's Zoom Flights. We don't know if penny@breakudown.com or 1-800-432-3061 contact methods spotted in The Source and Vibe are still valid modes of communication, but we certainly weren't jaded by strange when we saw the Foams in those print ads. Carbon fibre, stacked Zoom and injection moulding changed the game. Wearing the damn things? Not so easy. Graceful on court, too space age with denim...some can make that pearlescent finish look amazing. Many transform a pioneering design into something close to a K-Mart $15 special by lacking the necessary style to rock a Foamposite right. One thing is certain though—while we picked them up expecting a flyaway foam feel, they're far heavier in the flesh.

1998's total Air Foamposite Max is a stunner though. That was a perfect distillation of oddity. The Timb-looking wheat reissues of that model remain overlooked, but the tweaks on Foamposite technology were destined to be further implemented during the hybrid madness of the last few years. Seeing as the 1 is huge in New York and Washington D.C. and given the Nike Goadome love in both regions (especially D.C.) the Foamdome—monstrous to many outside the target locales—made sense, even if it isn't one for the skinny jean brigade (Foam fanboy and Rapidshare rapper Wale seems like a loose fit kind of guy).

1982's Air Force 1 was a similar shock-to-the-system on its launch, but now it looks pretty conservative. A perennial 'hood favourite like the Goadome, talk of fusing it with a Foamposite sounded like a logical idea. We've had our hands on some shots of it for a month or so now, but after handling it in New York, it seemed like the right time to talk about it. it looks exactly like we thought it would. Bulky. Silver. One-piece. In some ways it works, and in others it feels cumbersome.

That Rasheed Wallace still balls in Uptowns is an act of deliberate if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix rebel regression, whereas the world still hasn't quite caught up with the Foamposites looks—that gives this shoe a certain duality, as conventionality waters down some of what made the late '90s benchmark so significant. Now, somewhere between something slick, and the Silver Surfer with lymphedema symptoms, the moonboot aspect of the Force has been amplified and it's even weightier than we anticipated. Some will bug out, some will be disappointed, and others will wonder what any of the fuss is about. That's why we're glad the Nike Air Force 1 Foamposite exists. We're interested to see how it goes down on its launch this coming August...

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