The Nike Air Foamposite One ‘Galaxy,’ One of the Wildest Sneakers Ever, Is Finally Back
Maybe you don’t care about Nike Air Foamposites. I’m not gonna argue with you, I get it. They’re big. They’re bulky. They’re of an era. If you don’t ride for the DMV, or if you didn’t have a poster of Penny Hardaway in your room as a kid, they might not hold any cultural weight with you. You can’t really wear them with jeans—or you can’t wear them well with jeans, anyway. They take some finesse to style in the modern day and it’s a finesse not everyone has, nor one folks care to shell out over $200 to see if they have (Foams are, and have always been, very expensive). So look, maybe you don’t care about Foamposites and maybe you don’t care that a very special pair is coming back today.
But if you do care…
Whew. Who’d have thought we’d see the day? Today, on this day that by my approximation somehow isn’t a national holiday or a holy landmark in any world religion, sneakerheads are being blessed from above. There are no gods responsible, no pantheon of mythic figureheads demanding fruits and meat burned at an altar in exchange for the return of this colorway. No, this is a gift from the stars, from the skies, from another world. This is the Galaxy Foamposite, one of the most notorious sneakers of the 21st century.
Nike’s original Galaxy Pack and dropped way back in 2012 to commemorate NBA All-Star Weekend, long the high point of the year in sneakers. A selection of out-of-this-world takes on basketball silhouettes were released in the pack, including the KD4 and a particularly dope pair of LeBron 9s.
You don’t want to hear me talk about LeBron. You’re not here to read about the KD4 (you probably weren’t there to buy it, either—the shoe got retro’d last year and sat on shelves for weeks). You’re here to read about the Foamposites. So let’s talk about the Foamposites.
The centerpiece of the pack was an immediate first-ballot Hall of Fame sneaker colorway, one that depicted a hazy spread of stars and nebula across deep space, a radical portrait of the galaxy above us. The shoe’s glow-in-the-dark green soles provided a finishing touch on an absolute work of art, a shoe designed to look like it came from the future finally ascending to its purpose. This isn’t a sneaker, it’s a Star Trek movie. It’s for sure better than Nemesis, at least.
2012 was pre-SNKRS, pre-StockX, pre-resale as we understand it today. This was a time when folks would still camp out in front of Foot Lockers for a chance at a pair of kicks they needed to add to their arsenals and boy, did they ever line the hell up for the Galaxy Foams. Too many people, in fact, lined up for the Galaxy Foams. It got dicey. It got dubious, it got violent. Some stores cancelled their release of the shoes, sending everybody home unhappy. The pairs that made it out into the world hit sneaker forum for-sale sections and eBay alike. The prices were steep, but so were the offers—one dude said in exchange for a pair of the shoes he’d trade a lucky buyer a used car. A car, a functioning automobile. You could use one of those to drive to a national park at night and see the galaxy for yourself, but you can’t lace up the Milky Way.
