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Nike shook up its Air Max franchise in March with the introduction of the Air Liquid Max, a new model that pushes both aesthetic and technology boundaries through its unique construction.
Next up for the futuristic sneaker is a Bright Crimson/Fire Red spin on the shoe. With a full colorway of Black/Metallic Gold/Team Red/Fire Red/Bright Crimson/Clear, the latest iteration of the Air Liquid Max doesn’t stray too far from what we’ve already seen, but it does inject some new color into the experimental sneaker.
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The upper is still based in black, with its signature three-layer textured printed mesh coating the shoe in a mix of red hues. Metallic gold fills in the Swoosh and tongue branding, while the model’s defining Air Liquid Max unit is kept to a blacked-out look.
According to Nike, the Air Liquid Max was originally briefed as far back as 2019 and originally given the tagline of “The Most Nothing Max.” Designers were aiming to develop an Air Max unit that was light, fluid, flexible and most crucially, barely noticeable underfoot.
“Liquid Max had to set a new visual precedent, but the Air unit also had to give a new sensation for walking on Air,” Ditte Kuijpers, design director of Nike Sportswear innovation footwear, said in a press release. “People needed to both feel and see how it was different. Every component of the shoe had to work together for this to happen.”
With roots in 2021’s Air Max Scorpion model, the Air Liquid Max borrows the previous shoe’s point-loaded cushioning setup. This means that the Air Max unit is engineered so each component has a different stiffness and softness to better support pressure points of the foot.
“Scorpion gave the team a good starting point,” Wade Flanagan, director of Nike Air innovation, said. “We learned new techniques that could help us tune the bag for flexibility across different zones. Comparing the Scorpion bag to Liquid Max, we wanted to make something lighter, more flexible, more minimalist, but just as responsive.”
The latest Nike Air Liquid Max in Bright Crimson/Fire Red will be released May 29 in select markets, with a wider global release expected in the coming weeks from Nike’s Snkrs app and select Nike Sportswear retailers. The sneaker retails for $220 and its style code is IQ7634-002.