Atmos x Nike Air Max 1 B 'Safari'
Colorway: Flax/Tennessee Orange/Chestnut/Light Graphite · Style code: 302740-281 · Release date: January 2002 · Price: $1049 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Zoom Pegasus Turbo 2 /Atmosphere Sneakers (AT2863-007) · Nike Shox Gravity 'Atmosphere Grey' (AR1999-011) · Nike Wmns Pegasus Premium 'Atmosphere' (HQ2593-601) · Nike Wmns Crater Impact 'Atmosphere' (CW2386-602) · Nike M2K Tekno 'Atmosphere Grey' (AV4789-007)
Long before the shop's animal-print packs, atmos began its Air Max 1 run with this early-2000s pair. The Tokyo boutique, founded in 2000 by Hidefumi Hommyo with Hirofumi Kojima as creative director, reached back into Nike's own archive for the pattern: the Safari print Nike had introduced on its 1987 Air Safari. Here it covers the mudguard and the collar, while canvas takes the toe and suede fills out the side panels and heel. The palette is earthy, listed as Flax, Tennessee Orange, Chestnut and Light Graphite, and a gum outsole finishes the build. A shrunken Swoosh on the forefoot is the detail collectors check first.
This was atmos's first Air Max 1 collaboration, and it set the template the shop followed for years: take a print with Nike history, apply it to Tinker Hatfield's runner, and build the rest of the shoe in materials that let the print lead. The 'Elephant' followed in 2007 with Air Jordan 3 print and jade accents, and the 'Safari' itself came back in 2016 with suede and a glow-in-the-dark sole. Later packs added pony-hair animal prints and a stacked-shoebox graphic, but the earthy Safari remains the reference point. Its place in the Air Max 1 story is secure: it is the pair that made a Tokyo shop the model's most celebrated collaborator.