KISS MY AIRS.

26th March. To many sneakerheads, this day bears heavy significance. After all, it is the day that one of the biggest icons in Nike's sneaker gauntlet was released.

And it's quite ironic that this year's tag line features the catchy and some may say, passive-aggressive phrase, KISS MY AIRS. Well frankly, this tagline pretty much summarised Air Max Day in our humble little island nation for the past few years.

Air Max Day in principle is one of the highlights of the sneaker year. With a proverbial deluge of releases lined up, sneakerheads and more specifically, affecianados of air had all the reason to salivate.

So let's see what was lined up shall we? First and foremost, we cannot talk Air Max Day 2017 without talking about one of the most heavily anticipated releases of the year, the return of the Atmos Elephant Airmax 1. A product of a gazillion votes by sneakerheads in last year's VOTE BACK online poll (thank goodness the right pair won the polls), to say the Atmos AM1 was hyped was an understatement.

I mean JUST LOOK AT THAT BEAUTY! Very few pairs of sneakers have the ability to grasp the attention of hypebeasts and older sneakerheads alike. So I mean, we VOTED, so technically, we should have a shot at the shoe right?

WRONG. and how wrong we were.

The release was relatively more limited than what we expected. I mean, a shoe designed in Asia but was only released in certain parts of Asia? What's up with that? It stumps me why they would keep release numbers so low. I mean, if there were so many people voting for it, wouldn't it make sense to make it at least possible for most to purchase it? Nike, you got me there.

Other releases were no where as hopeful as well.

Another rather novel take on celebrating the Air Max 1 was the release of the Air Max 1 Master. We are living in the time of the "What The" design, face it. However, at least this time round, Nike did something correct it at least making the Air Max 1 Master aka the What The AM1 at least easy on the eyes.

However, AGAIN they got it wrong by making the damn shoes so damn hard to get. I mean hello, not even 2 size runs here in Singapore? Tsk tsk tsk, disappointing.

Another returning Air Max 1 were the OG red and blue colourways in a true "re-mastered" manner. I mean, I've seen the actual pairs in real life and the shape does look way more accurate than the curve ball, banana shaped, crescent moon toe boxes of recent OG red and blue re-issues. However, again, limited numbers and only via one channel. While I'm more happy for these because at least I know some people managed to get em, but it really gets you thinking about the thought process behind such releases.

The last release of Air Max Day saw the unveiling of a brand new model - the Vapour Max. Now, this is what I call a futuristic ass shoe. I mean, I know some of you out there have been lambasting the design but think about it, when the Air Max 95 or Air Max 97 first released, they were not as well received as they are now. Personally I'm a fan of new tech in shoes and it seemed quite a few people were too, based on online chatter. BUT GUESS WHAT? You guessed it, LIMITED RELEASE yet again! Now you're just playing us Nike.

But now, it's time for my biggest gripe about AMD 2017.

Picture from Streething

Singapore is deemed not worthy of an Air Max Day. The picture above was taken in Bangkok (by the Streething crew) , where Air Max Day was properly celebrated with a host of pop up displays, events and ended with a kick ass party with a line up of bad ass local thai performances. Now that is how you properly commemorate the birthday of an icon.

Bangkok aside, similar events took place in Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines. And in Singapore we had, well, ZILCH.

And frankly, I'm quite tired of this. I don't know about y'all, I like sneaker events. I like mingling with like-minded fans. I like talking sneakers, discussing stories, debating about colourways, and there's no better place to that then sneaker events.

So ladies and gents, is it really the case that Singapore is not worthy of even a small effort for Air Max Day? Have we fallen off that far? Are we going to just sit by and let releases slip through our fingers? To keep allowing brands to overlook us?

To me, we have only one option, and as we have repeated year after year, it's time for us to make some noise in the sneakerdom. We need to show the world that Singapore is worthy enough to have some effort put into us. Call this a wake up call to both brands and buyers alike, Singapore is definitely worth the trouble. And if you don't think so (brand or naysayer regardless), you can literally KISS MY AIRS.

P.S Next year, if no one takes up Air Max Day, we'll do one and we will call on your support to push it through.