Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential 'Triple Black'
Colorway: Black/Black/Black · Style code: 819476-001 · Release date: December 17, 2015 · Price: $2452 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential Sneakers (819476-004) · Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential Sneakers in Neutral Grey/ University Red/White (819476-006) · Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential 'Varsity Blue' (819476-102) · Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential Green 3M Sneakers (819476-103) · Nike Air Max 1 Ultra Essential 'White Varsity Royal' (819476-104)
Triple black is the simplest brief a sneaker can get, and the Air Max 1 Ultra Essential answers it with a shoe that is black from the upper through the midsole to the outsole. Released on December 17, 2015 at $120, this pair is built on the Ultra Essential platform: a seamless synthetic upper with perforations for airflow, overlays bonded rather than stitched, and a lighter foam midsole paired with the visible Air unit. The lack of stitching matters here, because on a blackout shoe there is nothing else to look at but the surface.
The Ultra Essential was Nike's lighter update to the Air Max 1 across 2015 and 2016, aimed at people who wanted the shape without the weight of leather and mesh. In all black it becomes a work shoe, a travel shoe or a wet-weather shoe, the kind of Air Max 1 that gets bought as a second pair and worn more than the first. The heel window still shows the Air unit, the detail Tinker Hatfield first exposed on the original Air Max 1 after seeing the inside-out structure of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.