Remember the Nike Shox? Well, they’re coming back
The boing is coming back. Remember those shoes that you wanted so, so, so bad when you were 7 or 8 years old? The ones that
Vince Carter
wore? The ones that you never saw Michael Jordan wear, but could help you jump like him?
They were the Nike Shox, and they’re back for 2018. Meet the Nike Shox Gravity — dropping on Jan. 12:
We haven’t seen the Shox in a prominent place in the sneaker market since the mid-2000s, but Nike is reintroducing them and they look better than ever before.
This shoe is different from its predecessors. It’s built for the modern-day runner, not a basketball player. The upper portion of the shoe is almost exclusively a mesh material with a lace lock in place on the tongue rather than typical shoe strings.
Still, the shoe still carries on the spirit and tradition that made the Shox so famous. It has its signature foam columns to give you that old bouncing sensation as you move.
To understand the new Shox, you must appreciate the shoe’s history.
The original Nike Shox pushed the boundaries of athletic sneakers. We’d never seen a midsole’s technology so exposed in a sneaker before. We’d been through the Air Max air bubble, the Converse REACT juice, and the Reebok pump system, but none of those showed off the midsole of the shoe so obviously. The springs were more than just a new twist:
The shoe literally took flight the same year it was finalized. Carter’s Olympic dunk over Frederic Weis represented everything the Shox embodied: flight, speed, finesse. It was all there. He debuted the Nike Shox BB4 with a bang:
PEEP THE KICKS, THOUGH:
Yes, it was these:
Carter left Puma in 2000 before joining Nike, but there was a dead period there where he wore whatever he could get his hands on. In the now-famous 2000 Slam Dunk Contest, he wore the AND1 Tai Chi’s.
But eventually, he signed with Nike, and it turned out to be the best decision he made in his sneaker career. He eventually got a few Carter exclusives on the Shox line and became the signature ambassador for the shoe. He even got this very cool, funny commercial:
Athleticism? Check. Playmaking ability? Check. Charisma? Check. The ability to jump out the gym? Check. Carter had it all, and the Shox embodied his signature style.
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Carter wasn’t the only ambassador for the shoe, though. It became one of the stronger trends around the league in the early 2000s, with players like
Jason Kidd
,
Tayshaun Prince,
and
Jason Williams
sporting them. Serena Williams even had her own Shox boots!
But like a lot of fashion in the 2000s, the Shox became victims of their parent company’s ambition. Rather than taking the simple approach and sticking to what it knew with spring cushions, Nike fused the Shox with other pieces of technology in its shoes.
In some cases it did too much like what it did here with the Nike Shox Turbo:
And in other cases the company did waaaay too much with the Nike Shox TL3:
Nike tried bringing the shoe back in 2014, but colorways were scarce. They haven’t been brought back since. People weren’t thinking about the Shox when there were new Yeezys to be had. There were still people wearing Shox, but it wasn’t the same demographic Nike had before. You’d see them on casual, khaki wearing middle-aged dads at the grocery store — a far cry from the younger generation that once adored them.
But four years later, things are different. Dad shoes are the trend. The Air Monarchs are cool again. These chunky new Yeezys are the wave. Maybe Nike Shox are up next. The new Gravitys could bridge the gap the shoe has faced between comfort level and aesthetics.
So there’s space for the Nike Shox again. No, it’s not a basketball shoe, but this is a start. And if this start goes well, we’ll see more versions of these coming down the line.
Hopefully, they’ll be here to stay this time.
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