Avid vintage collector Lee Atkins and I have been working on a vintage runner based on the Nike Intrepid, but using some premium leather and suede. We paid a trip to a renowned Northampton leather merchant to hand pick some super soft pieces to make these uppers. The shoe is fully leather lined and the tongues reimagined with leather instead of Nylon fabric. I added skived leather to the last to improve the shape at the toe. I wet moulded a leather sole using vegetable tanned leather raising it slightly at arch for support. The heel stiffeners were also made using this technique. I added a little heel height to a donor Nike Pegasus midsole as models like the Intrepid had a slightly higher pitch. Then I colour matched the midsole using acrylic paints. I hand painted some vintage style heel branding using stencils.
The vintage Nike shape is very different to modern iterations and I’m looking forward to developing a last together with Lee and improving the patterns on future pieces together.
July 2022
