Air Max Origins
The concept for the Air Max was first introduced at the 1978 Honolulu Marathon in Hawaii with a shoe known as the Tailwind. The Tailwind featured trapped air that created functional cushioning, but Nike Air engineers struggled to feature the trapped air in the design. In 1987 young architect turned shoe designer, Tinker Hatfield, cracked the design. Inspired by the Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum in Paris, Hatfield designed the Air Max 1 with visible air in the midsole, thus bringing forth one of Nike’s most iconic designs.
