In 1973, Nike had officially existed for only 2 years. Despite this, its co-founders Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman already had extensive entrepreneurial experience, especially in sports, thanks to their previous collaboration at the head of Blue Ribbon Sports. This allowed them to immediately establish themselves in the running market, via the launch in 1971 of the iconic Nike Cortez. With this first success, and driven by a desire to impose their Swoosh in other disciplines, the former resident of the University of Oregon and his coach logically turned their attention to the NBA, then booming. It was in this context that the Blazer was born, the first basketball shoe from the American brand.

A golden conversion off the court

If you like basketball, and you follow more or less closely the NBA, you have certainly guessed where the cult sneaker of Nike takes its name. It is obviously the Portland Trail Blazers, one of the famous franchises of the American championship. However, it was a player from another great team who popularized the silhouette, namely George Gervin, the star of the San Antonio Spurs. Nicknamed "The Ice Man" in reference to his free-spirited attitude on the court, Gervin embodied the Blazer for nearly 10 years, until the manufacturer replaced it in 1982 with another classic well known to sneaker addicts: the Air Force 1. At a time when leather models were legion, the Blazer and its simplistic upper stamped with the emblematic inverted comma of Nike have opened the way to many references that are also today the happiness of sneaker lovers that you are. The Air Jordan 1 and its "little sister", the Nike Dunk, come to mind.

While the Blazer was destined to disappear forever, in the early 1990s it received a lot of support from skateboarding fans who fell in love with its style as well as its vulcanized rubber sole. A few years later, after the creation in 2002 of the Nike SB division, the creative teams of the Oregon firm began to revisit it in a version adapted to the practice of skate. The Nike SB Blazer was born, completing the golden conversion of the original 1973 model off the floor.

Nike Blazer Mid '77, a tribute that became a must-have

While there are many variations of the Nike Blazer, it is the Mid '77 version that is the most popular. This one was created a few years ago to pay tribute to the one and only NBA title won by the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977. The shoe's distinguishing feature is the suede inserts on the top of the toes and the base of each side panel, a minor stylistic change but one that makes a big difference. The success of the Blazer Mid '77 Popcorn and the collaboration with DENHAM are proof of this. However, the collaborations with Sacai, Chitose Abe's label, are particularly noteworthy, as they have taken the model into a new era.