1994 Reebok Instapump Fury

by Matt Welty

The Reebok Instapump Fury looks more at home in 2020 than it did in the year it came out, 1994. The sneaker, with its split-sole design, red/black/yellow colorway, and Pump unit, was like nothing else on the market when Steven Smith designed it. It was also a sneaker that Reebok wasn’t ready for at the time, although it would prove to be one of the brand’s defining designs more than twenty-five years later.

Before the Instapump, there was the Reebok Pump, which was unveiled in 1989 in the form of a bulky basketball model that had a Pump bladder inside it that made the shoe tighten or loosen on the foot. The technology, developed by Paul Litchfield, became a pop-culture phenomenon. The sneakers were worn by Dominique Wilkins, and were positioned to rival Nike’s Air Max technology, which had begun to dominate the footwear industry. In a commercial for the shoes, Wilkins is seen holding a pair of Nike Air Command Forces and saying, “If you want to fly first class, Pump up and Air out,” as he tosses the Nike sneakers off the screen.

Tennis star Michael Chang also endorsed Pump technology, opting for the Court Victory shoe, which was designed for his sport. In the same brash fashion, he aimed fire at the rock ’n’ roll star of his sport, Andre Agassi, and in a spot similar to Wilkins’s, tossed out Agassi’s Nike Air Tech Challenge shoes.

Reebok wasn’t afraid to use the Pump to make a performance product, ruffle a few feathers, and give itself a leg up on the competition. “We were in a competition with our competitors to become the preeminent supplier of basketball shoes,” Litchfield said in a 2015 interview with Bloomberg News. “We looked outside of the athletic footwear industry and looked at what they were using in skiing. We looked at what they used for air splints. We looked at how they created a snug fit. We settled on this new and novel concept where they used an air bladder. To make the bladder work, it ended up bringing the price of one component to what the shoe was. We weren’t sure if a consumer would embrace a $170 shoe. Out of the gate, there was a lackluster order.”

Pump technology had its most important pop cultural moment when Boston Celtics guard Dee Brown laced up a pair of Omni Lite sneakers for the 1991 NBA Dunk Contest and executed a dunk with his left arm cocked back and his right arm covering his face and blocking his vision. That highlight made the shoes. Reebok has referenced it for decades and continues to rerelease the black, orange, and white sneakers over and over again.

The Instapump Fury was a departure from the earlier shoes in the Pump line. Its minimalist design and mesh upper were a far cry from leather basketball and tennis models from previous years. The shoe was also designed, though, to bring down the cost of the Pump and make the sneaker more functional from a production standpoint.

“When I first got to Reebok, we were working on building this innovation team that didn’t exist before,” said Smith. “[We were wondering], what do we do with Pump from here on out? Pump bladders were, like, 15 bucks a pair, and why are we building a complete shoe and then stuffing it inside of it? The Pump bladder was more expensive than the rest of the shoe, because it was being made in Massachusetts, [where Reebok is located].

“We were like, ‘Let’s get rid of the rest of the shoe.’ We sat a Pump bladder on a sole unit—like, ‘Let’s just do that.’ We were doing experiments with how to have [the Pump] be the outside of the shoe with fabric layers and things laminated to the urethane films. I was sitting in this boring meeting and I doodle this thing in my notebook, and it was the bladder flattened out. I nudge Litchfield, and I was like, ‘Look, fuck, that’s it.’”

Smith sketched the design out, and it ended up being close to what the sneaker became. When he was going through the process, he knew how important the model would be in the grander scheme of things. “The [sketch] is pretty true to what the shoe came out to be,” he said. “The sketch board page would have been lost to history, because the lawyers took everything [when I left Reebok], but I ripped that page out ’cause I knew the shoe was important.”

The Instapump’s split-sole design offered maximum padding in the forefoot and heel, with Hexalite cushioning in the rear of the shoe. The carbon-fiber plate in the arch also gave support, while the mesh upper made the shoe breathable and lightweight.

While the design of the shoe is what inspires the strongest reactions these days, its colorway was the biggest hurdle for Smith to overcome internally. At the time, a red, yellow, and black color scheme was jarring, and was met with resistance from conservative-minded marketers at Reebok. The colorway, as Smith tells it, was inspired by punk rock, his involvement in the straight edge scene, and his desire to make an “in-your-face statement.”

“Running shoes didn’t look like that. They definitely didn’t have those colors. They were white with a color pop,” Smith said. “When I showed [them the Instapump], they were like, ‘We can’t sell that.’”

This stirred up a feud between Smith and the marketer who would be responsible for making his sneaker sell or sit on shelves. “The marketing guy was like, ‘Well, we’ll put it in our line, but I doubt we’ll move any. If we do, we’ve had to do it in a conservative colorway: blue, silver, black,’” Smith said. “And I was like, ‘What are you talking about? That’s not what this is. You don’t do the Dodge Viper and not make it red.’ I was like, ‘You don’t fucking get it.’ So I went home and spray painted [a pair] with gray automotive primer. I brought it back. I went to the marketing dude. I’m like, ‘This is what you’re thinking.’ He says, ‘Oh, yeah, that I can sell.’”

Smith eventually went over the marketer’s head and talked to Paul Fireman, who purchased North American rights to Reebok in 1979. “I went up to Paul Fireman and was like, ‘The marketing and running team says they’re not going to do this colorway, that they need to do it in, like, a subtle gray.’ He said, ‘You fucking tell them they’re doing it,’” Smith said. “I went back down, and I was like, ‘I was up talking to Paul, and he said you’re fucking doing this color.’ He was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you would talk to him about it. OK, we’ll do this colorway, but I guarantee you it will be a 60/40 sales split, if we’re lucky.”

It turned out to be the complete opposite. The red/black/yellow colorway sold 60 percent and the gray/black/blue pair sold roughly 40 percent of the total sales of the Instapump Fury.

The model became something of a cult shoe, especially in Japan. It would have major moments thanks to the likes of Björk and Jackie Chan, with Reebok even rereleasing a colorway of the shoe that Chan wore in subsequent years.

One of the most mythical versions of the Instapump Fury was a pair that Chanel designed, which featured shades of gray and the interlocking C’s logo of the fashion house on the heel of the sneaker. It was created in 2000 and appeared in Chanel’s runway show. How the shoe happened, though, is a bit of a mystery to Smith.

“I wasn’t paying attention to a lot of the streetwear side of it at that point. You know, it was like, ‘Oh, there’s another variation of it,’” he says. “It’s always a surprise when you see your thing show up in the fashion world.”

That sneaker got a second life in the world of limited sneaker collaborations when Concepts, a boutique founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, revived the design in 2017. Although it wasn’t a true one-to-one version of the Chanel Instapump, which has found its way into museums, it was close enough for a lot of connoisseurs.

“Rhett [Richardson, who was our designer at the time], always had this inclination to do this design. We knew it was kind of a unicorn and not many people knew of it,” said Concepts creative director Deon Point. “We wanted to get it [as close to the original as possible].”

A few years prior, in 2014, Concepts was able to work on another Instapump Fury collaboration, which resulted in one of the most hyped versions of the shoe. The sneaker, which was inspired by prints on silk Versace shirts, became the most coveted of a slew of collaborations that Reebok released that year.

“The reason I did the Versace thing was because I thought of 1994 and I’m like, ‘What was happening back then?’ Obviously it was the Bad Boy era, or it was on the come-up,” Point said. “We went back and found a montage of different patterns and materials. That’s how that whole Versace thing came about. So there was a rhyme and reason to it. I just didn’t throw a bunch of shit together.”

The pairs of the sneaker were limited and created an instant demand on the resale market, due to Point and his team underestimating the popularity of the Instapump. “The reason why the resell is probably so high is that we undershot the unit,” says Point. “I think we only did 350 of those, where typically we would have done something like 1,200 or 1,800, or something like that. That is about 15 percent of what we typically would do. People are hitting me up. I was like, ‘Oh, shit. They went for a lot.’”

The shoes would resell for around $800, and they’ve held a strong value as of late. Decades after its release, the Instapump is still the legend that it was back then, with its history growing bit by bit. It was also the centerpiece for the first Adidas and Reebok collaboration, where it received a Boost sole. And it’s no surprise to Smith that the shoe became an icon. “When you saw it on the wall, it looked like nothing else,” he said. “That was the intent: to disrupt and make a statement, and that’s what this thing has done.”

Honorable Mention
Nike Diamond Turf 2

by John Gotty

Anyone who grew up in the mid-’90s has a little Deion Sanders in their DNA. How couldn’t he sway the youth when he appeared to have it all? The profile, nicknames, jewelry, gear, hair, and footwear.

Nike released Sanders’s second signature sneaker in 1994, when he played for both the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Reds. The two-sport star talked the talk, famously saying, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good.” And he walked the walk in his trademark shoes.

Nike designer Tracy Teague built on the construction of Sanders’s previous model. The silhouette shared the flowing lines common to most of the Diamond Turf line, which evoked a sense of speed. “I love fast things, like a Lamborghini,” Sanders explained on Complex’s Sneaker Shopping in 2017. “If you know a Lamborghini, it sits up high in the back and it slopes down low. So that gave me this look.”

The second iteration of the Diamond Turf embodied that statement. The design pattern created momentum with the lines arching forward, starting at the midfoot and accelerating into the forefoot. Sanders opted for a three-quarter high-cut for ankle protection and stability, with encapsulated Air units providing the necessary comfort and support. Teague added a larger forefoot strap and an internal sock bootie for a lockdown fit as tight as Sanders defended helpless receivers. One of the most popular colorways of the shoe used an intense shade of varsity red that complemented both the 49ers’ and the Reds’ uniforms. Gold-colored mesh running underneath the strap and along each side of the midfoot added breathability to the shoe while serving as a nod to the NFL Hall of Famer’s taste for jewelry. A special logo showcased both Sanders’s football and baseball jersey numbers, and stands as one of the best signature icons in footwear history.

The Diamond Turf 2 arrived at a time when Nike, from design and marketing standpoints alike, tapped into both the athleticism and personalities of its athletes. Sanders’s shoe was able to transition from one sport to the next, and then to the streets. “In those days, it was either cleats or tennis shoes or cross-trainers,” Sanders said on Sneaker Shopping. “I said, ‘Nah, I should be able to wear the shoes I’m kicking it with on the field.’”

“Neon Deion” made those shoes come to life through his play, and every base he stole or high-stepping pick six he pulled in the Diamond Turf 2 helped Nike sell another pair.