Hawaii Mike Salman's Top 25 Sneakers (In His Apartment)

Old school, original two-piece Nike box, gum soles, ill white leather. Love those shoes. I think I found ‘em in Philadelphia – in one of those spots it was cool to go downstairs? You talk to the old Korean dudes, got cool with them, they let you go downstairs and check out the basement. They were probably $40.

With those — Back to the Future, the movie in general growing up as a kid in the ‘80s, obviously this was before the MAGs, so that’s all you could get. Dope. And comfortable, except in the summer because they get too damn hot. You have to be in an air-regulated gymnasium.

The Chinese joints. I forget what they were for, I just remember getting them from — I think Alife. They had the clear plastic, that was from after the ESPOs and around the same time as the Fantastic Four Air Force 1s. Buying into the visible foot hype. They had breathable holes for, like, a guppy that would last five seconds.

The Air Max 95s are a staple in my closet — I probably have 15, 20 pairs of them. The Stash ones were just one of the only ones in my crib. I remember getting ‘em, got ‘em through a friend, Stash signed the box, so, you know — good look out from the homie.

Another one from a friend. What I love about these is that they let him do the box, which is something they never let the artist do unless they do a custom, like a wood box or something that’s not a traditional, Nike-size box. That was the shit. Sneaker could have been better — tell Eric I said that. [Laughs] Nah, that’s my man.

So I had got a pair of these Jordan sent me, always looking out, and one of my interns was like, “can you get me a pair?” I was like, Jordan won’t send me another pair, so I called Alife, and they were like, YOU have to come and get these, I can’t give them to anybody else. So I go down there, grab the joints, cool, I’m talking to someone looking at ‘em, I turn back there’s someone signing the sneaker. I look, and it’s Spike Lee. And I’m pissed because now I’m like, I can’t give ‘em to the intern, I gotta keep these. It was the day they were doing the release, and I didn’t see him — short in stature. It was funny as shit, though. I ended up getting Tinker and Mark Smith to sign ‘em also – the only one I’m missing is MJ.

ESPO, love him as an artist, became kind of cool with him at some point, came out, wanted to definitely support, got a pair. Plus, again, the whole clear hype was poppin’ at that point. But he has those sexy little socks that come with it too [laughs], so you can get your match on. I haven’t worn ‘em yet. I always want to go barefoot to see how bad it could get, but then I’d never wear them again.

Wovens in general — I just think that’s one of the things that I love about Nike when they talk about being inspired, pushing the limits to different levels, taking something athletic and making it casual. That whole shoe — it wasn’t a specific one. And unlike a lot of shoes we’ve been talking about, those actually breathe. Nice earthtone, throw on some camo shorts and a nice t-shirt and you’re straight.

How many pairs of those are there? And for some reason they’re still in my crib — I don’t know why. Plus my boys did ‘em — shout out to Glenn Chin — those are one of 100 maybe? I’m not a huge Air Force II fan, but the colorway matched what they were doing, the red, white and blue. Gotta have those, I don’t think I’ll ever get let go of those.

Those were fun — those went through two different PLMs at Nike. And they never ended up making them, but I got a couple pairs of samples. I was trying to get them so they said — you know the lettering on the backs — I wanted to get it so they left “NIKE” on the right one and the left one be “LTDX”, so when you saw them from the back they said “LTDXNIKE.” But it kept getting lost in translation, so I got two different colorways, but they both say “LTDX” on the back. And they did that on the tongue, too. But I tried. There’s like three pairs of them.

The rainbow Dunks — I though they were just so obnoxious that they were good. Again, camo shorts. Tiger camo and take a shirt that has exact opposite of any color that’s on there, and then you’re good. Don’t match at all.

Oh, so those were SB right before SB started. They had the thick tongues, the elastic — no Zoom Air yet — and there were like six colorways that came out. There was the Georgetown colorway, they had a stone and graphite colorway, they had the all whites — back then there was never an all-white low Dunk — but they had the grey soles on them. I went back to storage recently and switched out a bunch of Air Force 1s for those. I have all of ‘em, but that’s my favorite one. That’s the only one out of the set that had the gum sole — I’m a gum sole fiend.

The colorway. The leather on that one, plus the full Air bag — that was the one before Air Max 360s , end of the ‘90s beginning 200s. When you first got those shits it was like walking on a pillow. And I’m a huge Carolina fan, so for some reason they did ‘em in that Carolina color with yellow, the whole Air bubble was yellow, that shit was crazy.

Total utilitarian shoe. That and the Lava Dome — I didn’t put that one in there, because the Escape has such a better sole if you were actually going to go hiking? But in an urban environment like New York City where you’re constantly walking, I can rock that shit in the winter and the summer. And you don’t give a fuck — I’m not trying to keep ‘em clean, they look the same. So for me I’m very utilitarian in the way I dress, I believe I’m more than my clothes, so I want them to be functional, and those are a great, perfect functional shoe.

So this is when we had Greg Dacyshyn — he’s the creative director/VP of Burton now, but then he was the VP of softgoods. That was my dude, and with LTD we always featured artists and people who were heavy in the graphic world., and let them do the cover. This is when I was doing a lot with Mark Smith, and talking to him with the Kitchen, so I sent him like six pairs of Air Force 1s and they just lasered a part of the cover onto the side of the shoe.

Again, super-functional. And like, that shoe I travel with. If I don’t travel with that shoe, it’s the Air Presto. But that one — I go swimming with it, it’s the perfect Hawaii shoe for me. I can go for a run with it in the morning, meet up for lunch, go hiking later, go swimming — I can wear that shoe all day. That’s my joint, I don’t give a fuck if I look like a ninja. I still got the original ones from when they first came out.

Oh man. Hiroshi, Tinker, Mark. Awesome. That was such a clean — it was one of the first times Nike was messing with different box sizes and proportions for their premium shit. And it was 200 pairs, 250? Just one of those ones you had to have. Clean Air Force 1, perfect leather. That shoe was —oh, that leather was insane. The best thing about that was that it was being done by the top designer at Nike, the president of Nike, and the god of streetwear. So they’re only gonna make something they’re gonna wear. “Nah, we’re not gonna use THAT factory, that’s the common folk factory — we’re gonna go to the factory of the Gods.”

The Louis shoe — that was one of the first men’s sneakers from Louis Vuitton, they were like four or five hundred. I remember I bought the yacht glasses that went with ‘em and I used to rock those — I used to rock Hermes a lot back then, I didn’t rock much Gucci ‘cause that shit was so loud all the time. You just wanted something clean. I just remember those shits came in white, black and brown. Still think I know somebody who has a pair in brown that I might go grab. I got white — they look like doctor’s shoes, but fuckin’ stuntin’ on you guys. [laughs] Plus I was going to Miami a lot, that was a Miami shoe.

That was a present from Mark Smith at Nike. It’s a one-piece — nothing on the side. This one’s full white, the inside is very luxurious fabric — it’s smooth like velvet. Sample on the tongue. It’s a good, clean shoe. And it’s one I wasn’t expecting. I was like “dude, I know you’ve got some crazy shit there, just send me a size 11.” That’s when he was doing all the one-pieces like the 10s — I’m sure you saw those — so he was just like “here.” Clean.

Those were, I believe, the first kind of like collaboration sneaker from Nike. It wasn’t a fully customized one though — the Wu Tang one went a little further because they didn’t just add on to a colorway, they changed the tongue tag. But these, I think there was only 60 pairs of each, the grey pair that I got and some white with the reflective that you NEVER see. They both had the a# sewn into them. But it’s just a dope collab, and no one got those shits, only a handful of cats.

So those were one of those things that showed up in a plastic bag in my crib one time — no box, no label, from nobody. They’re like the ill pebbled leather, the ones that they would laser, it says Laser Pack on insole, but — it’s just an all-white Dunk, premium brown leather on the inside, and it’s got the big tongue they were doing on the Laser Packs. But it’s just all white before it got lasered. It’s the one that was on the conveyer belt and found an escape route and jumped off. Luckily they were in my size. [laughs]

Big Jordan fan obviously, so when Supreme got to do those, I jumped on that shit quick. Got the jacket to match — I matched on that one sometimes. Those are great, though. For $75? That was one of the most iconic Dunk releases. Because Jordan wasn’t letting elephant print get out like that. Not for a collaboration. Nobody could touch that. If it wasn’t for an OG retro, you can’t touch that. So how did that happen? Who got tricked? I just knew I was gonna go get those.

I want to say, comfort-wise, this is my favorite Jordan. This is a Jordan I can definitely wear for the longest, black and red — Chicago Bulls back then were the shit. I remember rockin’ like three different socks all with the Nike Air joints, you push ‘em down you see all the Nikes, black-red-grey? Dumb shit, you know, ‘80s high school shit. Those shoes are awesome, just remind me of high school.

Man, for some reason I attach these with ‘90s hip-hop and the Source magazine, because that’s where I was working at the time. I just remember seeing the patent leather on those shits and the whole shoe and thinking “those are great, I could wear anything with that.” And I remember the time when they first came out, the white, the all white with just a little Carolina, that was my shit. As you can see from the picture, I have a little obsession.

The 3s, I go back to my Athlete’s Foot story. I was the kid who got a job at Athlete’s Foot so I could meet the Nike reps so I could find out when the new releases were coming up. And the Jordan 3s — actually, not the black/cements, the black/cements were just my favorite colorway, but the Fire Reds, the original Fire Reds, were the first and only sneaker I ever stole. To the guy who got fired, my bad.