Nike Air Darwin 1994

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richardvi

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Hi everybody,

Sorry, I'm new here, but I need to get something off my mind that has been haunting me.

Around 1994 I hade bought the best shoes I've ever had. They were Nike Darwin shoes, low, full brown leather. They were natural leather shoes, meaning that they were not painted.

However, I can not find these shoes anywhere on Internet. Not even a picture. The closest picture that I could find is this one:



Now these look like canvas. But I am 100% sure mine were brown leather. They were also the most expensive shoes I had ever bought, but boy were they worth every cent I paid for them. I have had them for many years. I'm not even trying to get them back, of course I would like to, but some things should just stay in the past like the perfect memory they were.

But how is it possible that I have never, ever seen a photo of these shoes online? Is there someone out here who has seen the shoes, or better yet has a picture of them, because I'm starting to question my sanity on this.

Thanks,

Richard.
 
Were they the mids or lows? If I recall correctly, the lows were only released as canvas. That's a weird era as far as pics go. There were so many random regional exclusives and smaller batch colorways, they didn't always show up in the catalogs Nike sent to the stores. There are shoes that I 10000% know exist, but when you look for pics, there's zero evidence of them anywhere.
 
1000034472.jpg
 
I remember in the 90s Nike LE shoes used to have the embossed hangtag with limited edition on it in the same material as the shoes

I live in Phoenix now but originally from England and we had alot of LE cross trainer lows that were all brown or black nuebuck in the 90s which was great because we could rock them with our school uniforms instead of dress shoes.
 
jshortt said:
That's kinda what I was thinking. Those look like they're from Nike's "Limited Edition" program, which would explain why it's so tough to find pictures. Basically a regional/mom & pop release.
Click to expand...
But those Brown ones weren’t called LE tho. It was called “Darwin Low SC” as you can see from the following page….

https://tvby.yu-yake.com/darwin.html

Coincidentally, the Grey Suede Low was shown bellow SC on the above page and it was actually called “Darwin Lite Low”…
 
ta2and0 said:
But those Brown ones weren’t called LE tho. It was called “Darwin Low SC” as you can see from the following page….

https://tvby.yu-yake.com/darwin.html

Coincidentally, the Grey Suede Low was shown bellow SC on the above page and it was actually called “Darwin Lite Low”…
Click to expand...


Thanks for this link, had no idea those Darwins even existed.
 
ta2and0 said:
But those Brown ones weren’t called LE tho. It was called “Darwin Low SC” as you can see from the following page….

https://tvby.yu-yake.com/darwin.html

Coincidentally, the Grey Suede Low was shown bellow SC on the above page and it was actually called “Darwin Lite Low”…
Click to expand...

SC (sport classic) was an extension of that program at the time. Kinda what the LE program evolved into. They weren't putting the "Limited Edition" hangtag on them, but they were weird "lifestyle" colorways and releases before a retro was really a thing.
 
After reading the Japanese sentences written on the above page carefully, I became little more clearer about the history of Darwins now and it actually matches with my memory…. TBH, I thought those Brown leather ones along with the Canvas lows were released fairly soon after the OG (probably, within a year or two) while what I got which happens to be Lite Low came out at least several years after the OGs.

That page says OG Darwin Hi were released in 94 and Lows in the same material followed little later. Those SC Lows (w/o Air Window) in leather were released after that (the page actually says that those were US limited products) and then, the Canvas lows were released early in 95 while those Lite Low (w/o DRC in its sole) were released after 2000…. The Lite Lows sold here in JP were basically non-Air shoes while there were ones w/ Air sole sold in US… And in 2005, first Retro of HIs & Lows were released in US (apparently, not in JP)….

That explains why I could cop those Lite at ES….
I actually could go in to Nike-JP’s ES from 1996 to 2001 coz during that time, I was working for the certain Japanese trading company who’s employee id card could be used as a pass to go into their ES back then. (Don’t know whether it’s still like that coz they merged with the other trading company after I left and fully changed their corporate name.) If u read Shoe Dog, u should probably be able to figure out the name of the company….
 
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