Nike’s idea was to bring the feeling of those floors to their sneakers, something that was very ingrained in the brand’s roots. One of its founders, Bill Bowerman, not only developed sneakers, as he also created surfaces for athletics tracks that combined rubber and asphalt. But none of Bowerman’s surfaces achieved Thomas McMahon’s success. Nike wanted to bring the sensation of those floors to a pair of sneakers and to do that they relied on its own inventor, with whom they developed the first and voluminous prototypes developed in aluminium. Bruce Kilgore (Jordan II, Air Force 1, Sock Racer) had a new task, he couldn’t work on a specific model without developing more of a stable cushioning system.
Using McMahon’s ideas, Kilgore collaborated with different companies that could develop the appropriate material for mass production, but that implied a change in its design. Instead of a smooth surface, they proposed a sort of cone that was placed in the heel that could return energy, but the result wasn’t like what they had expected.
In 1990, Nike had been doing research around McMahon’s idea for six years, but this resulted in no more than failed prototypes. John Tawney, an engineer who had recently started at Nike after working at Ford and the biomechanic Gordon Valiant managed to give them the last push they needed. After much trial and error, they discovered that the best method to assimilate the impact and facilitate the return of its energy was through high-density foam columns. Unlike other systems, Shox recovered its shape vertically, turning itself at least in theory in a stable cushioning system. The four vertical columns of the first prototypes were tested until exhaustion whilst a design team was in charge of designing the sneaker.
Sergio Lozano (Air Max 95, Air Max 98), Eric Avar (Foamposite, Hyperdunk and the Kobe saga) and John Hoke III (Zoom Superfly Flyknit) took ideas from the first Apollo spaceship, the 20th Century Limited train or James Dean’s Porsche Spyder 550, which inspired them to create the silver and red colourway. The result, a sneaker built around four columns, that following the aesthetic legacy of the Air Max would become the true stars. Sixteen years after its first tests, the product was ready
Launched originally in the year 2000, the first three sneakers that had Shox were designed for running (R4), cross training (XT4) and basketball (BB4). The name was in reference to sports and the number of columns. The new Shox used a new design language, unrelated to any other sneakers of the moment. In the classic debate between performance and style, the first one gained a lot of traction. Debuted at the Sydney Olympic Games, a large part of the players from the American basketball team used Shox BB4, but one of them stood out above them all. In the match against France, Vince Carter jumped over Frédéric Weis, a 218-centimetre pivot who had become the best observer of one of the best dunks of all time. From that moment on all of the sneakers that Nike designed for Vince Carter were based on the Shox system and two decades later the player, who has become an ultra veteran, still plays with those Shox BB4.
The performance aspect had been proven, we only had to see how the streets would accept such a risky design. In a world where the internet hadn’t yet become a trendsetting figure, the Shox universe was accepted very differently in each region. In some areas, it was accepted as a sign of innovation and in others, it had become the heir to the Air Max Plus for its impactful and daring design.
