crooked tongues magazine News Features

The Nike Air Force 1's 30th birthday celebrations continue, and once again, we're impressed. We haven't seen too much overkill (other than the insane RRP on that anniversary Hi) and we're a quarter of the way through the year. We expected a deluge of Uptowns, but Nike are being smarter about it this year. While the majority fill out when they join the thirtysomething brigade, the AF1 has done the opposite and lost some weight. And yes, we remember the older shoes like the No Liner Dunks and Air Max 1s and we remember them being a tad pointless — nice colour executions undermined by the freakish fit. The Air Force 1 Deconstructed seems to make a little more sense. This Air Force look appeared at Mercer Street as a Bespoke option a short while ago, taking off where those 25th anniversary Italian made versions and the formal shoe style variations that Fat Joe owns left off, and while there's some leather editions dropping at a more resonable pricepoint that maintain that luxury-styled lineage, these suede versions with tonal suede swooshes are crack.

If you pushed us to name what we wanted to see on the Force front this year, we would've said suedes, canvases and jewel swooshes. We're set to see the jewels this year and these greys and navys with gum soles are out kind of shoes. The shades of suede remind us of some AF1s of yesteryear, but that's part of the appeal. This is a shoe that doesn't need pictures on the upper or transparent soles. We like it (cue the Barry White or Billy Joel) just the way it is, but we appreciate that it's a tougher sell in the skinny denim era — big shoes like Foams, LeBrons, Jordans and Yeezys might be killing it at the moment, but it's a different kind of basketball bulk to this model. While Forces might look great on ladies with the tight jeans, they look weird on a male audience with similar trousers. We even see the smedium jeans entering the onetime vast denim stronghold that was Harlem too, risking this model's key market, but being minimised from the inside and not being a monstrosity like the Air Force 1 Light makes the Air Force 1 Deconstructed a big look with shorts this summer. They're surprisingly comfortable despite being gutted out too. The alterations might be a little extreme, but these are an excellent execution of one of the greats. Both makeups drop in the Crooked Tongues store in May, and you can see them right here.