Nike Air Max 90
Colorway: Light Carbon/Light Carbon-Black Carbon · Style code: 875695-012 · Release date: September 16, 2017 · Price: $298 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Air Max 90 Ultra 2.0 Essential 'Smokey Blue' (875695-001) · Nike Air Max 90 Ultra 2.0 Essential Dark Grey Sneakers (875695-002) · Nike Air Max 90 Ultra 2.0 'Cool Grey' (875695-003) · Nike Air Max 90 Ultra 2.0 Essential 'Khaki' (875695-005) · Nike Air Max 90 Ultra 2.0 Essential (875695-007)
Tone, not contrast, is the whole idea here. Light Carbon covers the base and most of the overlays, Black Carbon darkens the panel edges and the heel counter, and the midsole is left neutral so nothing interrupts the run of tone. Panel lines that usually carry contrast on this silhouette are reduced to shadow. Nike released it in September 2017 at $120, the standard general-release price for the model that year.
Underfoot it is the familiar arrangement: a visible Air unit at the heel sitting inside the moulded window, a foam midsole and a waffle-pattern rubber outsole. Above that, the stacked panels that Tinker Hatfield used to give the 1990 original its layered look, drawn here in a single family of greys rather than blocked out in separate colours. Colourways like this are the quiet majority of the 90's catalogue. They rarely make headlines, but they are the versions that get worn out rather than stored, and the tonal treatment hides the creasing that shows up fast on white leather.