Double Bubble: An Air Max Collector Couple and Their 100s of 90s
Via @100s_of_90s
As one of the most iconic franchises going, the Sneaker Freaker community isn’t short of memories. For Air Max Day 2024, we connected with some of the biggest collectors in the game to chat about their most treasured pairs, the line’s cultural impact and the grails that got away. Our series rounds off with one of the strongest collections we’ve seen in a while, carefully curated by a husband and wife duo with a passion for .
What’s your name/alias/social handle, where are you from and which Air Max model got you hooked?
We are – an anonymous husband and wife from Melbourne who have been collecting since 2007, slowly stockpiling, never wearing and waiting for the time to show off our collection. The collection boasts a majority of Air Max 90s, unless they were part of a pack with other styles, and then we had to buy the whole pack. Remember when that was a thing?
We had a custom-designed display room built and installed in 2015. A shopfitter designed it to display one shoe and keep the box and the other shoe behind it. The fit-out cost over $30,000.
Needless to say, the Air Max 90 was the shoe that got us hooked. Having an OG pair stolen from a locker at school at just 15 years old in 1990 burnt. So the desire to collect stems all the way back to then.
What’s on foot right now?
Husband: Hiroshi Fujiwara x Air Max LD Zero (2016)
Wife: Skepta 97/BW (2018)
What specific memories or emotions does your Air Max collection evoke?
To us, the collection is art. It’s a piece of sneaker history that looks back to when sneakers had unique designs and were hard to acquire; when an eBay auction was legit and when international shipping cost you more than the shoes; when PayPal didn’t exist and raffles weren’t loaded with bots.
Is there a particular pair that holds the most sentimental value for you, and what’s the story behind it?
The ‘Infrared’ colourway will always be the Air Max 90 that we gravitate towards in terms of the shoes that do get worn. For a lot of the collection we bought two pairs, so although one pair is to stock there are many we rock! The collection is all a size US9.5/10 men’s.
Is there a grail you’re still hunting?
DS size US10 Air Max 90 BRS Powerwall – it’s the missing piece to the puzzle.
Tell us a funny or terrifying Air Max story that happened to you.
Anyone who comes to our house and sees the collection laughs and cannot believe they are all DS in the box and featured in their own room. It looks like a shop and we often get asked if we own a sneaker store.
In your view, what Air Max release had the biggest cultural impact and why?
The earliest of colabs that were impossible to secure has to be the Atmos x Air Max 1 ‘Elephant’. Anything Japanese from that time was hard to get – it was difficult to navigate websites and shipping to Australia.
What would you like to see for the future of Air Max?
A resurgence of unique designs and colourways. Stop rehashing an OG colourway. Sneaker designers need to design!
What’s an Air Max myth you can bust for us?
The Air Max 90 was designed for performance running, not as a street shoe. The cushioning was meant to be superior to any other shoe on the market at the time.
What does being a part of the Air Max community mean to you?
We’re not actually out there! Our sneakers are for us and we treat them as a form of art within our home art collection.
Show us three of your rarest Airs.
In a collection of 407 pairs, it’s hard to choose; ‘Homegrowns’, ‘Warhawks’, four variations of the ‘Duck Camo’, 10 ‘Military Pack’ pairs, three colourways of the Off-White colab, and the to name a few.