The Nike Air Huarache only made it to Indian shores in the last quarter. This pretty unique silhouette has been discrete in it’s entry to the market and deserves a lot more attention that it gets.

The Huarache I got is the Gym Red colorway. It has hits of black, jade and platinum grey through the details. The Huarache is a design that dates back to 1991, yup this is a 25 year old design although it has been updated through the years.

A quick on-feet and detail video to get things warmed up from my YouTube channel:

As you can see, the sneaker has a one-piece sock silhouette. It was a pretty controversial sneaker at the time of release and Nike almost canned it. The fact that the sneaker was devoid of the swoosh was an unprecedented call for the brand. Can you imagine, back in the day, when the swoosh was everything? But then, the legendary Tinker Hatfield was able to convince the execs, otherwise. Fortunately, design sense prevailed and this silhouette is amongst the most recognised on feet today. The sneaker was released with the tagline “Have you hugged your feet today?”

I did a bit of reading to figure out what does Huarache mean. It turns out, the ankle-hugging sneaker derives it’s name from these sandals that the Mayans wore to a death match! Interesting huh? The design cues are inspired from water-skiing booties which explains the external frame and sock-like neoprene upper.

The toe box features a stretchy mesh layer with hyper fused panels. The sock liner is neoprene. There is the Huarache logo on the tongue in jade, as well as the Nike branding on the back strap. Now another bit of trivia for people who don’t know, earlier versions of the Huarache (non-ultra) had a plastic back strap that wouldn’t budge. This version though has a bit of give that lets you slip your feet in, easy. This model came with rope laces, although I am inclined to flat laces because they don’t come undone easy.

The outsole features the traditional waffle design but has been cored out, being an ultra, to keep it light weight and to improve flexibility.

This drop in India was silent but is something that I personally feel Nike should have made a lot of noise about. But you know how it is with Nike, people discover and gravitate to them anyway. What do you think of the Air Huarache, would you cop a pair of these very fancy sneakers? Leave your answers in the comments, below.

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Shot by Vishal Dey for Bowties and Bones