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The Cortez is Nike royalty. It's the capo of the whole footwear collection. We often take that dual density midsole for granted and forget that it was once a performance running shoe and a transitional piece between the Onitsuka Tiger Corsair (which Bill Bowerman helped develop) and Blue Ribbon Sports moving from Tiger distro to unleashing their own Nike footwear line. Truth be told, even nearly forty years on, it's still pretty much peerless. The shape has altered and like the Air Force 1 that was unleashed a decade later, the Cortez has had its share of jewel swooshes, weirdo themes and fabric changes. Little can match the nylon and suede black and white, or white, red and blue leather as defining makeups.

Gangbangers gave this rounded, jagged outsoled design a menace that seemed at odds with the almost cartoonish fat branded design. It definitely suits our favourite televisual loser, George Costanza and history-making halfwit Forrest Gump. This is a shoe with range. The Fly Motion version is one of the better updates on an old model, but it's still unnecessary. This shoe cannot age. But if anyone can find a way to make this shoe less prone to aiding and abetting the destruction of our denim, we're open to some subtle tweaks. How Farrah Fawcett (RIP) rocked hers with flares without splitting her lip is a mystery.

Back in Beijing for the Flywire launch, it was curious that for all the bluster, one of the things that caused the Crooked party to stop dead and begin blankly snapping away was a grey suede and nylon Cortez that got a low-key release. These use ripstop nylon, which despite being placed everywhere this season, suits this model's style perfectly. Why the soon-to-drop "All Black Everything" pack seems to omit a fully blacked-out Cortez is a mystery, seeing as that model's been hard- to-find for a minute in either the old '91 mesh and suede formula or the '92 all-leather variation. We're hoping for a Cortez renaissance on the scale of the shoe's 1997 retro boomtime. These are available in-store now.