Tinker Hatfield on Design, NFTs, and Why Creating Sneakers Never Gets Boring

Legend. Inventor. Godfather. These are all words that any sneaker enthusiast worth their salt would use to describe Nike designer Tinker Hatfield. But, perhaps a more apt sobriquet for the man behind shoes like the minimalistic Nike Huarache or straight-from-science-fiction Nike Mag is “architect.”

Not just because he’s actually a trained architect, but because he also figuratively architected sneakers’ most iconic lines. Air Max? Changed the trajectory of Nike and has its own branded holiday. Michael Jordan’s greatest shoes on court? The original blueprints were sketched by Hatfield and now remixed by streetwear culture’s greatest collaborators from season to season, decades later. Read more at Esquire.