Nike Air Force 1 High '07 "Triple Black" Sneakers

Recipe one: black wide trousers with a black bomber and a grey knit underneath, letting the shoe disappear into the silhouette and the fit read as one line from shoulder to floor. Recipe two: indigo denim with a cream cable knit, where triple black anchors the bottom of a soft fit and stops it going shapeless. Air Force 1s run large on most feet, so a half size down is the usual advice, and the high top needs the strap fastened to sit properly rather than left flapping. Condition the leather every few months, brush the creases rather than scrubbing them, and keep the shoe out of prolonged rain because black leather waterspots and dries stiff.

Air Force 1s, Air Jordans and Air Max models were the shoes that carried Nike out of sport and into daily dress, first through basketball and hip hop after the 1984 Michael Jordan signing and the Spike Lee directed Mars Blackmon advertising, then through the casual and athleisure looks that followed in the 1990s and 2000s. The high top is the older, more formal reading of the model, and Triple Black is the version that people who do not want to look like sneaker collectors buy. It is the Air Force 1 stripped of its own iconography, which is a strange kind of respect for how recognisable the shape already is.

Full leather upper on the high pattern, padded collar, an adjustable ankle strap and a rubber outsole with Nike Air sealed into the midsole, the pressurised gas unit that gave this model its name and made cushioning a design feature rather than a hidden part. In an all-black execution the perforated toe panel and the stitched panel breaks become the only surface texture, so the leather grade shows more than it does in a two-tone pair. Style code 315121 identifies the High 07 line. Black leather scuffs grey rather than dark, so the shoe ages by lightening at the creases, and the black midsole avoids the yellowing that eventually catches every white Air Force 1.