Nike Air Max 90 Nrg Bacon 2021

Keep the rest of the outfit dry and plain so the colourway can be absurd. Grey sweatpants or washed black jeans, a white tee and a navy or grey overshirt let the pink and brown read as intentional. For a sharper version, wear cream wide trousers with a brown leather jacket, picking up the darkest layer in the shoe. Avoid pairing with other pinks. This is an everyday walking shoe rather than a running one, comfortable across long days on hard ground, and it fits true to size with a slim toe box. Brush the suede layers dry, clean the mesh with a soft brush and mild soap, and dry away from direct heat so the Air window and midsole do not yellow faster.

Air Max models sat alongside Air Jordans and Air Force 1s as the shoes that carried Nike from sport into urban and hip hop fashion through the 1980s and 1990s, then into the athleisure years. The 90 in particular became a collector's model because its panel structure gives designers something to play with, and the visible Air window gives every colourway a focal point. Bacon has an outsized reputation for a shoe with no athlete attached, no campaign and no slogan behind it. Nike's advertising voice, the Just Do It line Dan Wieden wrote in 1988, built the company's public identity. This one built its own following purely on the joke landing.

The upper stacks mesh, suede and leather in the classic Air Max 90 arrangement, with the mudguard, the eyestay and the heel counter all cut as separate panels, and this colourway leans on that separation so the pink and brown layers actually stripe. The visible Nike Air unit sits in the heel under a moulded window, the same pressurised gas cushioning principle Nike first put on show in 1987. A polyurethane midsole and waffle influenced rubber outsole handle the ground, tracing back to Bill Bowerman's original waffle iron experiment. The 90 runs slightly narrow through the toe box and the mesh panels breathe well, so it is a warm weather friendly shoe with a firmer ride than modern foams.