After watching a few matches of Wimbeldon a few weeks ago, it got me thinking... I grew up loving tennis shoes. I used to play tennis occasionally, but most importantly I used them to play basketball in outside on the concrete. They had a tougher outsole that lasted longer.
What happened to the importance in tennis in our culture? The shoes now suck. Cool tennis shoe commercials are non existent.
We used to have McEnroe, Agassi, & Chang. Before then Rod Laver, Stan Smith. They all had dope shoes. Reebok even took jabs at Agassi and his flavorful assortment of shoe colors with his pump. We need some more sneaker beef!
Coming up I bought Agassi's signature shoe every year. Just like I did with Jordans.
So now, I'm in the process of photographing all of my shoes, (I have most of them saved in storage that I've accumulated since the early 90's) I'm seeing all kinds of old tennis shoes.
Here are my top 5 tennis shoes of all time.
5. NIKE AIR FLARE (great baskebtall shoe)
4. NIKE AIR TECH CHALLENGE (the first 2)
3. REEBOK COURT VICTORY PUMP ("The Michael Chang's")
2. Air Cross Trainer 1 ("The McEnroe's")
1. ROD LAVER (one of my signature shoes that I wear atleast 4 times a week)
Here were a few shoes that I did for Adidas a couple of years back when Agassi just signed to Adidas. (So weird I know, but gotta chase that check right?) Like a lot of streetwear ispired sports graphics, these shoes were inspired by his first Tech Challenges.
