Sixteen Visions of One Shoe

There are maybe five shoes in history that transcend category and become objects—things people relate to not as footwear but as cultural artifacts. The Adidas Superstar. The Asics Mexico 66. And the Nike Air Max, which has been quietly shaping how a certain kind of person thinks about design, color, and the street since 1987. Not just a shoe. A document of a particular moment in how cities looked and what people wanted to signal by what they wore.

Hypebeast and Nike Greater China commissioned sixteen Asian artists—illustrators, animators, video artists—to make short films in its honor. The brief, if there was one, appears to have been "do whatever you want," because the results are startlingly varied: some painterly, some kinetic, several pushing into anime territory, others closer to fine-art video. Contributors include Wang Junkai and Tommy Ng, PRONOUNCE, Lauren Tsai, John Yuyi, Zhang Zhoujie, Yoshirotten, Naohiro Fujisaki and Shangda, Chino Lam, AXJ, Chris Cheung, Avivi, Li Wei, Tai Chaiyu Hao, Da Bei Yu Zhou, Lu Yang, and Li Yong. The range makes a quiet argument: that the Air Max means something different to each generation that grew up with it, and that Asia has been producing some of the most interesting design and animation work going.

Worth watching all sixteen back to back. Rare that brand-commissioned content earns that.