Nike’s Surprise ‘Neon’ Air Max 95 Based on Designer Sergi…

Nike is releasing a new iteration of the original ‘Neon’ Air Max 95 colorway based on an unrealized 1994 sketch from the shoe’s designer, Sergio Lozano. The sneaker will be sold exclusively through Nike’s SNKRS app and in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art Design Store.

Without prior announcement, the MoMA Design Store put up a run of the shoes on its website here on Wednesday morning at around 10:15 am. The sneakers sold out within minutes.

The Air Max 95 will drop again on Thursday, April 10, through a Nike SNKRS Pass that will be open to SNKRS app users in the New York City area for a random 10-minute window that day. The SNKRS Pass function makes launches available in a specific geo-fenced radius, meaning that if you’re not in the right location, you won’t be able to participate.

Users who successfully reserve a pair through the app will be able to purchase the shoe at the SoHo MoMA Design Store on Friday, April 11. The sneaker will not be available for purchase at the store without a SNKRS pass confirmation. The retail price for the shoe is $190.

Sources tell Complex this Air Max 95 will be very limited, with just 1,500 pairs made for sale. Nike and the MoMA Design Store would not comment on the shoe’s production run.

Nike unveiled the special Air Max 95 and sold a limited number of early pairs at an invite-only event at the MoMA Design Store in SoHo on Tuesday night. The event centered around a screening of 1995: The First Year of the Future, a short by New York City filmmaker Ben Solomon contextualizing the cultural history of the Air Max 95 in New York.

In a presentation before the screening, Solomon spoke to how New York embraced the model when it debuted in ‘95, situating the Air Max 95 in the canon of graffiti and hip-hop fashion at the end of the 20th century. The filmmaker argued that the Air Max 95, “a running shoe that is terrible for running,” became iconic not through performance bona fides, athlete endorsements, or aggressive advertising campaigns, but through those wore wore it.

“Sneakers have no cultural significance or implied meaning at the time of creation, despite what marketing and storytelling professionals would lead you to believe, present company included,” Solomon said, employing more candor than is usually permitted at Nike brand events. “Cultural significance emerges only when a community independently adopts these consumer items and embeds their own meaning, through their own customs and visual language, into them.”

1995: The First Year of the Future is narrated by New York graffiti writer POST VSOP, a sneaker hoarder with firsthand knowledge of the 95’s impact in the city. The piece features conspicuous teasers of the Lozano sketch Nike Air Max 95, including on POST’s feet throughout.

Complex broke the news of the shoe’s existence in a podcast shot three weeks ago, but the new Air Max 95 was otherwise a rare sneaker that did not leak prior to its planned launch. Ahead of the surprise drop on Tuesday night, no images of the shoe had publicly surfaced.

This version of the Air Max 95 (style code HM4738-001) flips the gradient colorblocking of the fan-favorite “Neon” colorway upside down, giving the shoe a grey-to-white fade from top to bottom and a white midsole. The sneaker’s upper materials differ from a standard 95, the MoMA Design Store-exclusive pair using a nappier suede that’s not as smooth as what’s usually used on Nike Air Max 95s.

The Lozano sketch take on the Air Max 95 uses the same “big bubble” build introduced through this year’s “Neon” Nike Air Max 95, meaning the sneaker has a roomier toebox and more voluminous cushioning units than previous retros.

The Air Max 95 is the latest in a string of occasional Nike product releases done in collaboration with the MoMA Design Store. In January 2018, Nike sold a black and silver Off-White x Nike Air Force 1 through the store’s location in Midtown Manhattan, across the street from the museum. The MoMA DeSign Store currently stocks a range of co-branded Nike x MoMA socks.