Nike SB's Navy/Black Air Force 1 Hits Skate Shops First

Navy suede, black Swooshes, and not much else. The Nike SB Air Force 1 in Navy/Black is the plainest version of Nike SB's rebuilt skate Air Force 1 yet. No shop logo, no rider's name on the side. Just the build.

It landed at select skate shops on 11.13. SNKRS gets it starting 11.17.

April's Light Orewood Brown Set the Build

The first skate Air Force 1, in Light Orewood Brown suede with pink accents, arrived at skate shops on April 17 under style code HM8517 100, with a wide SNKRS release on April 21. Nike SB lowered the footbed and the midsole, added a modified herringbone outsole, and put fit pods in the collar lining to lock the heel during slides. Nike's own release lists a reinforced padded tongue, internal sit straps and a revised toe profile, with an Air unit kept in the heel for impact.

That's a lot of surgery on a shoe Bruce Kilgore drew for basketball in 1982. It's also a shoe with a long memory. Baltimore kept the Air Force 1 alive after Nike discontinued it in 1984, with local retailers placing special orders until Nike brought it back.

Mau Rosillo, from Nike's color design team, put the job plainly in Nike's launch release. "We had to find the right balance between delivering for skateboarders and honoring an icon," he said.

The April campaign was shot in New York by Jonathan Mannion, the photographer behind famous portraits of Jay Z, DMX and Nas. It ran with the premiere of the Nike SB team video, Creased, with team riders like Karim Callender, Ville Wester and Troy Gipson in front of the lens.

This time the photos are by Brian Kelley.

Navy Suede, Black Swooshes, Nothing Else

Navy/Black carries style code HM8517 400, the April debut's model number with a new suffix. The upper is dark navy suede. The Swooshes are black suede, and black carries on through the heel tab, the midsole and the outsole. Sneaker News notes the SB construction matches the other general release pairs.

Retail is reported at $120, matching what Nike SB charged in April.

There's no trick in the colorway, and that's what makes it interesting. Navy and black is about as close to a uniform as a sneaker gets. It hides grip tape scuffs better than Light Orewood Brown ever could, and it doesn't need a shop's story or a pro's name to explain itself. If the lower midsole and the herringbone tread are as good as Nike SB says, this is the pair where you'll find out, because nothing else on the shoe is asking for your attention.

Skate Shops Got Four Days Before SNKRS

The release order is the most Nike SB thing about it. Select skate shops sold the Navy/Black first, on 11.13, and SNKRS opens on 11.17. April ran in that order too, with skate shops on April 17 and SNKRS on April 21.

Four days doesn't sound like much. In sneaker terms it's leverage.

The shop gets the customer who walks in, the one who'll skate the pair that week, before the app crowd and the resellers get a turn. Nike SB built its whole identity in 2002 on that arrangement, signing skaters and selling through core shops before the mall caught on. Giving the counter a head start on a plain colorway is a small, steady way of saying the shops still come first, even on a shoe as big as the Air Force 1.

Core Shops and Yuto Horigome Got Their Own Pairs

The months between April and now were about handing Nike SB's story to other people. In July the FC Pack put nine core skateshops in their own Cumbia inspired jerseys, with an Air Max 95 leading the shoe side. In September Yuto Horigome got his own pair, the Iron Grey IO8439 100, released with the short film Vault 7. It carried YUTO molded into the medial side and his feather logo on the heel, at $125.

Then came the shops. The City Pack gave four shops their own Air Force 1 Low colorways, with Nocturnal in Philadelphia, Fly Streetwear in Shanghai, Ben G in Amsterdam and Instant in Tokyo each getting a pair and a style code. The Ben G pair was capped at 300 with the shop's round logo, sold only by the Dutch shop.

The City Pack's European release was set for 11.13, the day the Navy/Black hit skate shops. That put two very different Air Force 1 stories out on one day, one about four cities and one about nothing but the shoe.

Plain Colorways Keep a Skate Shoe Honest

Read across the year, the Navy/Black looks like a reset. April introduced the build. July through October handed the line to shops and a two time Olympic champion. A Flax pair came through in June too, under HM8517 200. Now Nike SB is putting out a dark, quiet pair under the April model number and asking skaters to judge the shoe on how it rides.

That's the right call, and it's the bet the April launch made out loud. A skate shoe earns its place when people buy the second pair in a color that doesn't photograph well, wear it through, and come back. Collabs and pro models bring people in. A navy suede pair with black Swooshes is what tells you whether they stay.

The test is the one Rosillo described back in April, skaters on one side and the icon on the other. This time the icon isn't wearing anyone else's colors. HM8517 400 is navy suede over a black sole, on the same lowered midsole and herringbone tread that started the year.