Welcome back, I'm currently typing this grumpily from a sunny garden with a glass of OG in hand, life doesn't get much better, but I'm stressing about the workload coming up over the next few weeks. This is going to be a very quick write up as I'm keen to put my head down and get a few articles out this, one covering my time in Zurich, another on the Temper Run and finally a recap of the Puma 50th Aniversary event I'm attending tonight.
But right now I'm here to talk Air Max, Nike Air Max 1 "Curry" to be precise and ahead of this week's episode of True to Size? where we go in-depth with a comparison of the original and the retro I wanted to bring you my thoughts and also a few photos that turned out aight otherwise, they'll only sit on my hard drive.
The early 2000's where a golden era for Air Max 1 with a lot of pairs that collectors now refer to as grails dropping and now trading hands for lots and lots of money, most of this fire originated from overseas with heavy hitters coming from Japan through collaboration with Atmos or designated a Co.JP drop meaning it was exclusive to the country at the time, even if I feel Atmos fell off hard in recent years you still can't deny the effect these shoes had on today's footwear industry.
Now there's been some confusion over the past few weeks about the origin of the Curry some have said it's an Atmos collaboration, some have said it was a US Exclusive which is why I waffled on with the above but after doing some digging and talking to Nike man in the know Daryl Valdez it turns out Offspring stocked the orginal, if this was imported at the time I'm not sure as I know there was a period before certain stores had an official Nike account when importing was common practice throughout the industry with many shipping over exclusive pairs to puff up their stock and flirt with other brand accounts, funnily enough the Curry wasn't that popular and ended up hitting sale racks, but again that isn't an uncommon story for the time.
Coming back round to the shoe at hand, well I've always had a soft spot for earthen coloured Air Max and a lot of my favourite pairs fit into this category, but the Curry has always been up there for me, understated and easy to wear with a beautiful nubuck saddle and broken up with white mesh and pops of blue on the eyelets and tongue tag, a simple but perfect palette and this has now been transferred onto the 2018 retro, although I may add not as faithfully as I would like.
Oh, I don't know - I don't want to be constantly negative but it's not the same, it's close but no cigar, the colour is oversaturated and the shoe just feels like it's dropped down a few levels from premium, that and the shape leaves much to be desired. I wish now we'd of seen that perforated leather mock-up that leaked earlier in the year, I wouldn't have been mad at that.
Calming down and coming back to reality, well look, you're not going to find a DS OG pair that's wearable without a lot of time and money, even then you'll probably need a sole-swap aka even more money, ok they aren't awful and are in line quality wise with the other Air Max 1's dropping this month, so if you're a fan of the colourway grab them, if you're a fan of fucking amazing retro's take my advice and go grab the Purple Punch.
Again thanks for taking the time out of your day to read my musings, don't take offence this is all my personal views and I'm not exactly your normal footwear breh. Props again to Daryl for the fact check and also Ghulamb for lending me his pair of OG's. Anyway, catch the next episode of True to Size? this Friday at 7PM for a good look at both the original Curry and the new and of course my handsome face in a much happier mood.
Peace!
