That's How It Happened

Nike's Best In Show event, as part of the Festival of Air, turned out better than I could possibly have expected. The whole of the London sneaker scene turned out at Nike Town to judge the best Nike Air sneakers put up for competition by the Crooked Tongues fraternity. Fraternity is definitely the right word, because there were 300 guys, and about 30 "plus ones". The whole night was a series of huge highlights:

Hanging out with Dave White, celebrity sneaker painter, and discussing the greatness of the 80s Adidas scene in Liverpool.

Catching up with one of my childhood friends, Martina, who now works in house at Nike. I've been bugging her for 18 months for an invite to Nike iD Studio, and she's always insisted that it's an impossible mission. See item 6.

Voting on 200+ pairs of the greatest Nike sneakers ever seen in one place. CT Heads represented with everything from the rarest early 80's deadstock, to the most limited 00's shoes. Totally amazing stuff.

Getting way way drunk at Nike's expense. After the thousands of pounds I've spent on their shoes, it was so nice to get something back for free.

Winning the "Best Sport Specific Other Category", with a pair of DS Nike Dunkle SBs. Really assiduous blog readers may recall the time I came by these uber special shoes, way back in 04.

As a prize, getting to design my own iD Studio pair of Air Max 90's, now called the AM Rufus, which are currently being hand stitched just for me by third world orphans. My garish day-glo dream come true.

Learning that Charlie from Crooked Tongues is a "big fan of my blog". Maybe the beers had gone to his head too, but I couldn't be prouder. The "reach" of this goofy website never ceases to amaze me.

Tags: nike, festivalofair