Air Max 90
Sculptural Study
Genesis
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Growing up around sneaker culture, streetwear and that 90s visual language, the Air Max 90 was always one of the silhouettes that stood out to me. Years later, when I worked at Foot Locker, that interest only deepened. The silhouette of the AM90, its attitude and the way it sits on the ground have always felt iconic.
Before I ever made Art Toys, just for fun, I had made an illustration of a stylised Air Max 90 next to the word ICON, mixing the shoe with a model pastel graffiti aesthetic.
Years later, when I moved into sculpting, I came across that illustration in an old folder and immediately knew I wanted to translate it into an Art Toy.
Process
Unlike my character-based pieces, this project needed a completely different internal structure. It wasn’t an anthropomorphic body so the weight, the balance and the internal armature had to work around that exaggerated landing point that gives the figure its sense of movement. I wanted the piece to look grounded, almost as if the shoe was alive and pressing its weight into the floor.
I started by creating the overall silhouette and then built the individual fabric panels directly in polymer clay, adjusting each shape to the curvature of the shoe. It was a slow, technical process, but very satisfying.
Outcome
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This piece is one of my earliest sculpted works from 2015. I can see everything I would refine today, but the intention, the movement and the overall silhouette were already there. It became my first real approach to turning a sneaker into an Art Toy, something I kept developing over the years and that still shapes the way I think about form, weight and attitude in my current work.
