phrases, pictures & design // Nick DePaula
When SLAM #41 dropped in April of 2000, we had simply witnessed maybe the best Dunk Contest efficiency of all time. Vince Carter was famously a sneaker free agent in simply his second season, and he laced up the white and purple AND1 Tai Chi on the fly for that on the spot traditional array of dunks.
AND1 had been round for just a few years as a rising attire firm by that time and their transcendent streetball Mixtapes have been shifting main, however now, their footwear was taking off too.
The Tai Chi turned the primary shoe in firm historical past to promote greater than 1,000,000 pairs.
“Not solely was that possibly one of the best sequence of dunks I’ve ever seen — as a result of it was simply dunks that you simply’d by no means even seen earlier than — nevertheless it was nearly just like the dunks that he had accomplished have been tailor made for the colorblocking of the shoe,” stated the model’s former head of footwear.
The opening reverse 360 completely showcased the white and purple sides of every shoe rotating by means of the air. The between-the-legs dunk — off of a bounce go — immortalized the footwear in mid-air ceaselessly.
The enduring photograph is so traditional that the Raptors’ new unis feature the pose right on the front. Earlier right now, Vince and the franchise unveiled a new outdoor basketball court featuring the silhouette at half court.
As the excitement again in 2000 after that mid-February All-Star Weekend continued, on the very subsequent SLAM cowl slot that was out there, VC laced up a easy black and white pair of the Tai Chi for the quilt shot.
The header textual content was easy:
“The Best Present On Earth”
As SLAM continues to have fun its thirtieth Anniversary this yr, we created a brand new model of the AND1 Tai Chi to honor the 2000s period of AND1 and the influence of the Tai Chi on sneaker tradition.
The timing couldn’t be higher, as each SLAM Journal and Vince Carter will likely be inducted into the Basketball Corridor of Fame subsequent month in October.
Our AND1 Tai Chi collab options SLAM’s heritage colours of white, gray, black and orange, fittingly the precise shades from that Subject 41 cowl shot.
The white-to-black mesh fade is a nod to the model’s distinctive materializations from the beginning of the last decade, and a method to deliver the Tai Chi’s authentic yin and yang impressed cut up learn to the facet of the shoe.
As at all times, the shoe appears finest with a suede colour alongside the within panel — a vivid orange suede is seen right here on the SLAM version.
The distinction stitching, cut up colour laces and chrome shank all tie again to the added touches that originally made AND1 footwear such a power in hoops throughout the flip of the millennium.
To layer in additional detailing, our thirtieth anniversary crest could be seen alongside the internal proper collar, reverse of the three vertical stars on the left collar that signify every problem’s version quantity.
The 3M hits all through tie again to the intense lights of All-Star Weekend, and the influence that The Best Present On Earth has had, all these years later, on each AND1 and SLAM Journal.
