words & images // Nick DePaula
As crazy as it may sound, today is actually the tenth anniversary of the release of the original Nike Air Hyperflight. It’s been ten years indeed, and on June 16th, 2001, the world of footwear design changed for good, as the futuristic and sleekened silhouette marked a new direction for Nike Basketball’s Flight line. Seen in full color gloss cobec uppers, the Hyperflight flew off store shelves around the country in a myriad of tones. Even all these years later, the shoe still holds onto one of the most unmistakable profiles ever, and you couldn’t help seeing them everywhere you went that summer. I know I definitely had a go-to outfit for my red pair, and the matching outfits only got more legendary worse when it came to the orange or yellow versions.
For as much as the Hyperflight looked forward at the start of the 2000s and tried its best to usher in a new era of modern product design in footwear, the inspiration that triggered designer Eric Avar was much more personal and meaningful than most other projects he had worked on. He didn’t notice a car‘s angles, draft off of an athlete’s watch or build out a complex backstory and theme around the shoe -- he was simply inspired by the company’s co-founder.
“We had talked as a team about doing a lightweight shoe, but the real notion and inspiration for the Hyperflight came from when Bill Bowerman, coach at the University of Oregon and co-founder of Nike, had passed away,” explains Avar. “I was at the gym working out the day before the memorial celebration at Nike, for him and everything that he was and meant. They were having a rehearsal for the celebration the next day, and I just caught the movie that they were going to play. It was a montage of Bill’s life, his legacy and everything that he was and what he accomplished in his life and at Nike. I just kind of stood up there and I was very moved just as an employee.”
For those of you not familiar with the legacy of Bill Bowerman, as the University of Oregon Track & Field Coach, he was notorious for modifying the shoes of his athletes, hoping to shave off ounces and, ideally, save them fractions of seconds from their runs that could eventually lead his team to victory. Coach Bowerman and Phil Knight together founded what would eventually become Nike Inc, and for all of the business and marketing savvy that Knight had at his personal disposal, Bowerman was the wealth of functional and performance knowledge that helped to ignite the innovative framework of the company.
During what may have otherwise been just another workout for Eric Avar in 2000, it was the sudden and emotional reminder of all that Bowerman meant to the company that helped to spark the direction of the Hyperflight. “I had met Bill and I certainly knew who and what he was, but it was really at that moment that it hit me just how much he meant to Nike,” Avar recalls. “It just hit me, and I was like, ‘Wow, ok, he was a Track & Field coach, but he played football, and he knew about all of sport.’ The notion just popped into my head, and I wondered, ‘How would Bill Bowerman design a basketball shoe in today’s day and age.’”
At the time, “today’s day and age” of basketball was ever evolving too, as the flair of streetball, the emergence of hip-hop and the continual independence of players to showcase their own abilities had all merged together at just the right time for a product as brash and daring as the Hyperflight. With the game’s quickest point guards in mind, Eric Avar set out to design something as minimal and lightweight as possible. The result was clearly iconic, and still paid tribute to Bowerman’s minimalist principles. “We probably made it look more futuristic and fancy than he would have [laughs], but it was the essence of it being literally a track spike for the court and being as minimal and as lightweight as possible, while still providing the cushioning and support that a basketball player would need,” says Avar. “That was really the brief for us and we collectively decided as a team that we were going to really make a statement with this product.”
Make a statement they did, and now ten years later, the Hyperflight still holds true to the modern and simplistic approach that Avar set out to achieve. As you look back at the footwear landscape from a decade ago, a time in which mechanical cushioning and overly molded uppers were beginning to be introduced by companies throughout the industry, the dated and gimmicky aesthetics that marred several other models haven’t followed the Hyperflight through the years, a credit to Avar's oft-timeless touch.
To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Nike Air Hyperflight, we’ll be showcasing several samples, player exclusives and release colorways of the shoe all throughout the next week, so be sure to keep checking back for more updates on the iconic history of Eric Avar’s much-inspired design.
