Nike Air Vapormax Flyknit 3 'Total Orange'
Colorway: Black/Dark Smoke Grey/Total Orange · Style code: CU1926-001 · Release date: December 17, 2019 · Price: $349 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Nike Air VaporMax Flyknit 3 'Particle Grey Ghost Green' (CU1926-002) · Nike Air VaporMax 2023 Flyknit (DV1678-600) · Nike Air VaporMax 2023 Flyknit Electric (FZ2519-001) · Nike Air VaporMax 2021 Flyknit 'Grey' (DV2114-001) · Nike Air Vapormax 2021 Flyknit 'Oreo' (DC9394-001)
The detail worth noticing on this pair is the dots. Nike accented the Swoosh and the heel overlay with clusters of orange points, a direct reference to the Ben Day process: the mechanical dot screen used in cheap color printing, and the technique pop artists lifted wholesale in the 1960s to make commercial reproduction itself the subject. On a running shoe it works the same way it did on canvas: an ordinary industrial method enlarged until it turns into decoration.
Everything else is left dark. The Flyknit upper is black and carries flowing linear lines that Nike credited to couture rather than to sportswear, so the knit reads as drapery rather than as support structure.
Underneath is the VaporMax sole, which since March 2017 has been Nike's argument that a running shoe does not need a foam midsole at all. The foot sits on hollow, unconnected air chambers positioned where it lands. It released in December 2019 at $200.