phrases, images & 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 crimson AND1 Tai Chi on the fly for that on the spot basic array of dunks.
AND1 had been round for a couple of years as a rising attire firm by that time and their transcendent streetball Mixtapes had been shifting main, however now, their footwear was taking off too.
The Tai Chi grew to become the primary shoe in firm historical past to promote greater than 1,000,000 pairs.
“Not solely was that perhaps the very 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 — but it surely was virtually just like the dunks that he had achieved had been tailor made for the colorblocking of the shoe,” mentioned the model’s former head of footwear.
The opening reverse 360 completely showcased the white and crimson sides of every shoe rotating by the air. The between-the-legs dunk — off of a bounce cross — immortalized the sneakers in mid-air ceaselessly.
The enduring picture is so basic that the Raptors’ new unis function the pose proper on the entrance. Earlier at this time, Vince and the franchise unveiled a brand new out of doors basketball court docket that includes the silhouette at half court docket.
As the excitement again in 2000 after that mid-February All-Star Weekend continued, on the very subsequent SLAM cowl slot that was obtainable, VC laced up a easy black and white pair of the Tai Chi for the quilt shot.
The header textual content was easy:
“The Biggest 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 impression of the Tai Chi on sneaker tradition.
The timing couldn’t be higher, as each SLAM Journal and Vince Carter can 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 Difficulty 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 strategy to deliver the Tai Chi’s authentic yin and yang impressed cut up learn to the aspect of the shoe.
As all the time, the shoe appears to be like finest with a suede shade alongside the within panel — a vibrant orange suede is seen right here on the SLAM version.
The distinction stitching, cut up shade laces and chrome shank all tie again to the added touches that originally made AND1 footwear such a drive in hoops in the course of the flip of the millennium.
To layer in additional detailing, our thirtieth anniversary crest may be seen alongside the internal proper collar, reverse of the three vertical stars on the left collar that signify every subject’s version quantity.
The 3M hits all through tie again to the intense lights of All-Star Weekend, and the impression that The Biggest Present On Earth has had, all these years later, on each AND1 and SLAM Journal.
