crooked tongues magazine News Features

The Nike Footscape pretty much encapsulates everything we love about Nike's mid '90s madness in one shoe. Remember when stores like Duffer were buying 'em up from specialist running stores then charging £150 for a previously affordable release? Remember The Hideout getting co.jp pieces in several years later? The black and red retros on Foot Locker sale shelves? Then there were the modifications - the deeply crappy Footscape 2 from 2001 is a dark moment in Nike sequeldom alongside the ill-fated follow-up to another 1995 favourite, the Rift that dropped at the same time. Then there was the more succesful merger with another piece that got Probe status 5 years after the Footscape dropped - the Woven in 2006 - one of the best Nike hybrids ever. And we haven't even mentioned the Stasis, Shake Ndestrukt, Trailscape or even pre-Footscape side-lacing experiments? We still get giddy when we see elderly Japanese tourists sporting a pair.

Still, this strangely bulky, oddball classic feels like a work-in-progress. The minds behind the current Nike Sportswear output evidently hold it in high regard. We would usually flee from any major alterations to this model - we weren't feeling the Supreme version at all. But the Motion variation can work. The 'True Colors' versions for a certain sporting event have been decent, but these versions from fragment design (we all know Hiroshi is fond of a Footscape or 10) hark back to some original Footscape colours. These purples (part of a duo alongside navys) hit the mark through some extra familiarity with regards to what was once a deeply unfamiliar design. The wire is tonal in application, holding the foot in place, the construction is a little more streamlined, shorn of that distinctive paneling, it weighs less, and the Free-style cutouts on the sole are pretty subdued. The medial side still looks completely bonkers, and as long as Nike keep pumping out the original variation in clean colourways, the Footscape Fly Motion is cool with us and these are available at 1948 right now...