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As Nike releases the latest version of Air Max, the much-anticipated Air VaporMax, that simple idea to show the technology remains powerful, even as the technology itself—essentially a polyurethane bubble inflated with gas—has lost its novelty. In its 30 years, the Air Max franchise has been one of the most successful in sneaker history, and helped propel running shoes into the realm of fashion. As much as any performance benefit it offers, Air Max’s success has been driven by how it looks.Nike calls the VaporMax the pinnacle of Air, the culmination of decades of design evolution. And Air, says Kathy Gomez, Nike’s vice president of cushioning innovation, is ”one of the foundational ideas at Nike that we’ve built on for footwear.”The original idea, though, wasn’t Nike’s. An inventor named Frank Rudy brought the notion of putting small airbags in a shoe’s sole to the company in 1977, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight later took a sample pair of air-cushioned sneakers out for a run. Nike was sold. It steadily integrated the idea into its products over the years that followed, including the Air Force 1, the basketball shoe Michael Jordan wore before Nike launched his Air Jordan line in 1985.

It was evident even then that the concept of Air, and the way Nike could use it to evoke emotion in its marketing, would be of paramount importance to Nike. But the technology itself was hidden from view within the sole.The idea to expose the innards of the sneaker was the brainchild of now-renowned designer Tinker Hatfield, who had begun his career as an architect. He was inspired by the Centre Pompidou, the modern-art museum in Paris whose creators left its interior architecture exposed to maximize the space inside and to show onlookers its different mechanical and structural systems. Hatfield adapted the notion to the Air platform, resulting in the Air Max 1.Hatfield’s visible airbag had two benefits, Gomez says: First, it allowed Nike to use a much larger bubble and less foam in the sole than previous sneakers, making the shoe lighter; second, i

The story goes that the marketing side didn’t like the idea of a sneaker with a hole in its sole at first. But the design became as identifiably Nike’s as the brand’s trademark swoosh.“Air went public, in a way,” says Yu-Ming Wu, founder of the rapidly growing sneaker convention, Sneakercon. “That really put them on this course to dominate sneakers.” He notes that the 1988 Air Jordan III followed Air Max’s lead and used the line’s first visible air bubble.Unlike most running shoes before it, the Air Max 1 also featured bright red or blue accents that popped, even from a distance. It looked different than anything on the market.Nike launched a campaign to convince the world that Air was a revolution in cushioning. Spurred by a resurgence in running, sales took off.