Sole Collector x NikeTown Seattle Event | Held March 17th, 2006
words & images_Nick DePaula
After the success of the Air Max 180, themed directly after Florida's gator population, once again the local host city received an Air Max shoe inspired by a local nickname. For Seattle, also known as the Emerald City, it's easy to see where the hits of emerald green can tie in to the region, but as with most of Sole Collector's shoes, playing it safe is never fun.
Retrokid and the "Cowboy" decided to get festive once again, and created this Air Max 95, featuring an all-new buffalo print upper along the lateral side, and a much more colorful medial side.
Nick DePaula: What do you remember about the Seattle event?
Retrokid: When we did Seattle, that's probably one of my favorite shoes of all time. The original concept was still to celebrate the History of Air pack and the Air Max 95. My original thought was to do every rand on the side a different color and material like we did before with the Cowboy Dunk, but actually, Chris Scheller came back and thought that we should take it a step further even.
They introduced the Buffalo print for the first time right around then, and we did the outside in black Buffalo with green contrast stitching as an homage to Seattle and the Emerald City. Then, on the inside, we did every rand representing one of the iconic colors from the History of Air pack. So we had the red from the Air Max 1, the ultramarine from the Air Max 180, the teal from the Air Max 93 and the neon yellow from the Air Max 95. Each rand was signifying a shoe, and then the eyelets on the medial side also represented those colors.
The whole thing kind of came together with the black speckled laces, which was really cool. So you had on the lateral side the black buffalo print with the green contrast, and then on the medial side you had a completely different look and feel. Each was numbered on the medial side, and there was actually 300 of those. That one was really fun to do, and it's probably one of my favorites, right behind the Cowboy Dunk. It turned out really, really good.
NDP: I remember that event being pretty awesome.
RK: The event was really good, and that was the one where ESPN came and did a segment for "It's The Shoes." They came through and filmed something on each of the competitors, and it was good energy and a good show. A lot of Nike people also came up from Portland, and that was the one where Alan Tisch won.
NDP: Yeah, he had the Fat Joe Forces, Ray Allen XXs and a lot of great, crazy stuff.
RK: Yeah he had a great table. That was also the one where Zac [Dubasik] had a table, and he had a bunch of cool 90's stuff. Mike, The Jester, came with really, really good customs too. His tennis ball Dunks and a Digi Camo pack were great.
The line for that one was really crazy too. Mike had worn his DigiCamo Dunks prior to the event, and that all of a sudden was rumored to be the quickstrike or an SB or something. [laughs] Seattle was a great event though.
Images from the event:
