NIKE AIR WORKS OPENS A NEW CHAPTER FOR AIR MAX
Nike Sportswear is beginning to unveil the first creations from Air Works, an ambitious design programme that brings together eight designers from cities spanning Tokyo, London, Beijing, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Shanghai, Paris and New York. Rather than treating Air Max as a finished visual language, the programme asks what the platform might become when its next interpretations are shaped by designers rooted in different creative communities.
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The first two silhouettes, created by Motoi Hatsuki of Tokyo and Tasnim of London, are now being revealed. Both designers developed their Air Max expressions alongside Nike mentors and footwear technology company Zellerfeld, using 3D-printing techniques to explore forms that would be difficult to approach through more conventional footwear development. Their work begins a rolling sequence of reveals that will continue through February 2027, culminating ahead of Air Max Day 2027.
Air Works began in May 2026, when its inaugural group travelled to Nike’s Philip H. Knight Campus in Beaverton, Oregon. Over several days, the designers worked directly with Nike designers and engineers while exploring different parts of the company’s innovation ecosystem. Their programme included visits to the Air Manufacturing Innovation facility, Department of Nike Archives, Nike Sport Research Lab, Blue Ribbon Studio and Bowerman Footwear Lab. The intention was not simply to place an external designer on an established Nike template, but to expose each participant to the history, research and technical resources behind Air Max before translating that knowledge through an individual perspective.
That approach is particularly relevant to Air Max, whose identity has always been closely tied to experimentation. Nike Air first appeared in performance footwear in 1978, while the Air Max story took a decisive visual turn in 1987 with the Air Max 1 and its visible Air-Sole unit. The transparent window transformed an otherwise concealed cushioning technology into something that could be seen, making technical function part of the shoe’s visual vocabulary. Nike has continued to develop the platform through changing approaches to cushioning, construction and form, with recent innovations such as the Air Max Dn and Air Liquid Max extending that pursuit in very different directions.
Air Works places that history in conversation with contemporary creative practice. The programme’s first class comprises eight designers selected from distinct urban centres, each bringing a relationship with their own community and culture. Motoi Hatsuki represents Tokyo, followed by Tasnim from London in August. Marc Su of Beijing is scheduled for September, with Los Angeles designer Masyn following in October. Diya Joukani of Mumbai is set for November, Jose Wong of Shanghai for December, Yams of Paris for January 2027, and Omi of New York City for February.
The staggered format gives the project a quality closer to an evolving exhibition than a conventional footwear launch. Each month introduces another interpretation of the same fundamental brief, allowing the contrasts between cities and designers to become part of the story. Nike describes the resulting silhouettes as expressions of their creators’ individual viewpoints and local communities, while the use of 3D printing provides an additional layer of freedom in translating those ideas into footwear.
The partnership with Zellerfeld is central to that process. Rather than relying solely on established manufacturing conventions, the programme uses 3D printing as a tool for investigating new forms. The technology is therefore part of the design conversation itself: a means of testing how Air Max might be constructed and perceived when designers are given different possibilities for shaping the shoe. Each expression remains connected to Nike’s Air platform, but the programme deliberately makes room for variation rather than prescribing one aesthetic outcome.
There is also a cultural dimension to the project. Air Max has developed a life well beyond its original sporting context, becoming closely associated with music, street style, design and communities that have adopted and reinterpreted the footwear in their own ways. Air Works acknowledges that history by giving designers from those different creative environments an active role in imagining its future. The result is less about imposing a single global interpretation and more about allowing several perspectives to exist within the same technological lineage.
For Nike, that philosophy follows a much older pattern of combining technical curiosity with outside observation. The company began on 25 January 1964, when Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman founded Blue Ribbon Sports in Portland, Oregon. Initially focused on importing and selling Japanese running shoes, the business gradually developed its own footwear innovations, with Bowerman’s experiments in construction, traction, and materials becoming particularly influential. Nike emerged from that foundation as the company expanded its own product identity, while the Swoosh first appeared on a Nike shoe in 1971.
That heritage of experimentation remains visible in the way Nike approaches Air. The company has repeatedly treated cushioning technology not as a fixed component but as something that can be redesigned through new materials, manufacturing techniques and proportions. Air Works extends that instinct into a collaborative setting, shifting some of the responsibility for imagining the next chapter towards designers whose creative references originate outside Nike’s traditional design teams.
For those following the project, the first two releases establish the premise rather than provide a conclusion. Motoi Hatsuki and Tasnim open the sequence, with six further designers still to reveal their interpretations. Each forthcoming silhouette will add another geographical and creative perspective to the programme, gradually building a broader picture of what Air Max can mean across different communities.
The current Air Works programme is ultimately interesting because it treats heritage as something to work with rather than simply preserve. Forty years of Air Max innovation provide the foundation, but the forthcoming silhouettes suggest that its future may be shaped by a more fragmented, personal and geographically diverse design language. As the remaining designers take their turn, the most compelling question may not be what Air Max has been, but how many different versions of its future can coexist.