nike air force 1 ( year of the dragon edition )

for the 7th year out of the past 10, nike released an air force 1

to commemorate the chinese new year.

they dropped in a very limited edition just over a week ago at 10am... 

i picked up mine at 10.30am

1948 is the top place for nike in the uk. not only is it a fantastic space

with friendly staff, but the extra touches are very nice too.

there's usually a free magazine or two to pick up and when you buy something

it comes packaged in a quality cotton tote bag.

the year of the dragon af-1's come in a decent box this year

it's like a pull-out drawer. 

the box comes with a clear plastic outer sleeve

with a dragon detail printed in black

so far so good

but what are the shoes like ?

well...

they are pretty sweet... but i think they could have been better

let's take a closer look

the tip, the toe box, the eye stay, the mid panel the foxing, the tongue and the heel strip

are all finished in a black chinese silk with a dragon motif woven into it.

the swoosh is constructed from a material which i guess is supposed to

represent dragon scales

here you can see a bit of the pattern on the mid panel. 

hmmm... maybe not all the pattern is of a dragon ?

here's a shot of the foxing

the pattern on the silk is different on each shoe by the way.

as you can see from this shot of the tip, the pattern is quite subtle.

from a distance these just look like plain black af-1's

i'm not sure about using silk as a material. i'm very much a fan of leather af-1's

and in my whole crate i only have two pairs of suede af-1's and the one pair which

feature harris tweed

 i do think it looks good, i just have doubts about how it will wear.

oh i nearly forgot to mention... the shoes have black metal eyelets, black

waxed laces with silver tips...

and very swish silver dubres with xxx on them, white on white.

the heel tabs are nice. you know by now that i'm not a fan of having 'nike' 'air' and a 

swoosh on my heel tabs... i like to have them either blank or with something else.

these bad boys have leather heel tabs with a chinese symbol stitched onto them

( i'm guessing the symbol says 'dragon' )

i'm also not a fan of 'nike' 'air' or a swoosh on the tongue tabs either so...

... nice one nike... a very impressive embroidered dragon using a variety of colours

which really makes it stand out against all the black

another nice use of bright colours is on the insoles

black sock liners but bright colourful insoles. very tidy.

now to my least favourite part...

ok they have a leather wrap midsole, which gives them another boost of quality

but in my opinion the bright white is a bit much.

especially when teamed with a white outsole

grrr !

i can hardly bring myself to publish this pic

bright white mid and outsoles... once again, grrr !

so what are my ideas for a better year of the dragon ?

i would have liked to have seen the top eyelet on each shoe in a different colour to black.

just choose any of the colours featured on the insoles ( pale blue, yellow or red ) 

and i reckon they would have that extra bit of style... look that little bit more special.

although i'm not a fan of white midsoles, the fact that it's leather is very nice,

personally though i think these are screaming out for a different outsole.

either the predictable 'mayor-style' gum out or why not use a colour featured

on the insole again ? imagine these as they are but with white midsoles and say a 

pale blue outsole... or red... or yellow ?

imagine a yellow outsole but with the two circles on each shoe in red...

maybe keeping it simpler, just a plain black outsole would finish them off

nicely without being too garish ?

let me know what you think of these. what you think of my 'improvements'

or how you would improve them.

happy new year !