Nike Air Max 1 – White – Gorge Green – Light Green

Once the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, 2012, except a nice refresher of Nike Sportswear Air Max releases for the opening season of the year. Sneaker News has already kept you on pace with a ton of upcoming January 2012 Air Max 1 and Air Max 90 releases, but let’s throw this new White/Gorge Green colorway into the mix; it features white sport mesh on the tongue with a Gorge Green mudguard and a light green upper for a nice University of Oregon themed colorway. Currently available at Euro retailer Chmielna 20, these Air Max 1s will likely spread out to other Euro shops soon.

Nike Air Max 2012 – White x Pink x Blue

After getting our first look at the upcoming Nike Air Max 2012 just a few weeks ago, we now get to feast our eyes upon another new colorway. This time around, Nike went for a sort of 3-D effect utilizing white, pink, and blue.

The low top runner is based in white with both pink and blue layers covering he base. Black accents are used on the inner liner, Nike Swoosh, and midsole lining. The shoe is finished off with an ultra comfy blue 360 degree Air Max unit. Check out the photos after the jump.

Nike Air Max Diamond Turf – Black/Varsity Red-White

The old signature shoes of recently inducted NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders continue to drop in new colorways, including this fresh Nike Air Max Diamond Turf currently available at Eastbay. Possibly inspired by Deion's time as a member of the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers or Cincinnati Reds, the retro Nike training shoes feature a predominantly black nubuck and synthetic upper, accented by Varsity Red on the cross-strap Swoosh logo and inner lining. White and black handle the midsole, while a solid black rubber outsole caps off the look below.

Pick up the newest colorway of this 90s classic at Eastbay today.

How I Became King Of The Swapsies

April was when it all began.

The cold spell broke and moods began to brighten as the school defrosted in the fresh spring sunshine. On the first Sunday of that month the red topped newspapers gave away Panini Italia 90 sticker albums with a starter pack of stickers and newsagents erected cardboard Panini display stands on their shop counters.  And so it was that football stickers entered my life.

STICK WITH PANINI was their slogan when the brothers Panini began selling collectable football stickers in the early Sixties. Before long Umberto and Giuseppe had a lucrative business and were lightening parental pockets beyond their native Italy and across half of Europe. The business model is evil genius in its simplicity. Give away the shiny sticker album then punt out the stickers needed to fill it in sealed packets, masking the identity of the five players within. Each sticker numbered so as to be stuck into the corresponding gap in the album. In 2009 they sold over a billion packs of stickers across one hundred countries, and it wasn't even a World Cup year.

The Panini craze was in full swing within two days and any third year boy who didn't have an album on Monday made damned  sure they were in the game by Tuesday, tooled up and ready to trade.

Twenty four teams competed in Italia 90 and most got a double page spread, seventeen players per nation, plus squad shot and team badge. The team badges were set against a reflective silver foil background and called foileys. Foileys were highly prized. Most countries got a two page spread, but the minor teams had to suffer the indignation of being crammed onto a single page. In these cases, stickers were laid horizontally as each hosted two players.  These minnows were Cameroon, Costa Rica, United Arab Emirates, S. Korea and Egypt. Shame really.

There was also an opening section which included a stadia guide and a series of poses by Ciao, the worst mascot in World Cup history, a block man with a football for a head.  Poor show by comparison to Pique the wide smiled, giant moustache and sombrero sporting Mexican from four years previous.

These totaled another thirty seven blank spaces. A total of four hundred and forty eight sticker-less holes to fill. The math′s is complex, but at twenty pence per packet of six stickers and accounting for the ever decreasing percentage strike rate, I calculated that to complete that album was going to cost me a shed load of money.

As any user of substance regular or otherwise will tell you, as a habit grows you must learn how to feed it above and beyond your own meager means. At first, one only buys occasionally, just for fun. Then one finds oneself indulging all the time, spending all available cash and still requiring further supplies. So what to do then? One must borrow, one must steal, or one must trade.

Swapsies were my first, and to date, most successful stab at dealing. Certain stickers had a higher frequency of occurrence than others. You could hardly give away a David Beasant (England) he was that common. And even though Yong Hwan Chung><Jong Soo Chung (South Korea) popped up in almost every other pack, the Chungs were worth at least three Daves.

Nike Air Max 90 – White/Obsidian Grey

Colorblocking at its finest. The Nike Air Max 90 is set to drop in a familiar colorway with the name that doesn't really give a complete description of the colors. The white/obsidian grey AM90′s feature the traditional materials but also havestrong hits of volt that really make the shoe stand out. Strange that it's left out of the color code but nonetheless, an overall good sneaker. These are available in stores now.

MAX100 x Afew x Nike Air Max 1 - "1-of-1" Pack

Funded via Kickstarter earlier this year, the MAX100 book is a reality, and author Matt Stevens continues to celebrate his big achievement. The Air Max 1 fanatic recently linked up European retailer Afew to create a special "1-of-1" pack, which consists of a NIKEiD make-up of his all-time favorite sneaker, a limited edition t-shirt and custom packaging.

The shoe features a unique MAX100 tongue, as well as custom insoles adorned with artwork from the actual book. That same art can be found along the interior of the shoe box and a graphic on the front of the t-shirt, which is available to a limited run of 50 now at Afew. Read on for a close look at the complete package.

Nike Air Max 2012 Neon/Red colorway will stop traffic

The Nike Air Max series is one of the most popular lines in Nike's training/running brand and come in an almost limitless amount of colorways.  Most are clean and often paired with grey or black for a classy look, but there are those times when Nike's designers go nuts.  And for our first look at the Air Max 2012, we get one of the most obscenely colored kicks I have seen in a long time.  If you need people to know that you like to run, this is perfet for that morning or evening jog and freaking out everybody in sight.

Much like every other shoe in the Nike family coming 2012, the Air Max 2012 will feature a Hyperfuse base for very light and easy ride.  And of course, the Air Max unit is there and is a subdued red.  Then again, anything is subdued in comparison to what is happening up top.

No release date has been given for this specific colorway, but we definitely be featuring more variants as 2012 progresses.