1996 Nike Air Worm Ndestrukt

Now here's a pair of sneakers I fell in love with after they were no longer available ANYWHERE! They were the Dennis Rodman basketball shoe. I started seeing them a lot in '96 and '97. Then in '98 is when I started frantically calling stores all over the place to see if they had them in stock. Too late, I know. The funny thing is most people at these shoe stores had no idea about these shoes. I'd call asking about the Nike Air Worm, "The one with the zipper," and it was as though I was talking about something from outer space. These shoes were unique in that they featured a zipper as the fastener which kept them on your feet. But hidden underneath the zipper was a lacing system that also served to help keep the shoes on. Very cool idea. Oh well, I learned to live without them as this was a sneaker that was never retroed. However I did eventually come into a few pairs of these many years after the fact, and the following photos are of the most recent pair I had.

While at the time I was really into these, in retrospect I don't think I'd wear these now. They are a bit too busy-looking and I much more prefer simplistic designs nowadays.

Nike Air Jordan IV Retro in White & Military Blue

As I wrote before, the Air Jordan IV is one of my all-time favorite sneaker and I've had many over the years albeit mainly all retro releases. Of the original 4 colorways the only one I never happened to get a retro pair of was the white/red/black which was my 2nd favorite color scheme. I still plan to someday but since I got my beloved 'cements' it's not really high on my list of priorities.

Another of the colorways I bought during the retro years was the white & military blue. I had about 3 or 4 pairs of these but I was never all that into them. I wore one for a while and eventually sold it. Yeah, they're nice but let's face it--AJ aficionados have never been all that big on this pair. It might be because Michael Jordan himself never wore this color during his Chicago Bulls days. I'm not completely sure on that so don't quote me. But for me that wasn't an issue as I did not watch basketball in those days. For me it was a matter of these being more seldom seen than the other colors. In fact, during high I can really only remember one guy who wore these. So since I didn't see them much I didn't long for them much. You know what they say: out of sight, out of mind. Plus I never cared for the grey areas on these and those missing black areas that were present on the cement's and the red's were essential. At the time though I was pretty content with having a white pair of AJ 4's that I could rock until something better came along.

These photos are of a pair that I never wore.

This is a pair I will not be picking up if they ever retro it again. They are cool but I'm just a lot more selective about what I have and wear now. Instead of having one pair of every kind of cool sneaker I'd rather have 2 or 3 pairs of the ones I really like. But I will say these AJ 4's looked a lot better after some wearing, as the next photo will testify:

NEXT POST: More Air Jordan IV!!