Which Air Force 1 to Customise? Start With the Right Base

Before there is a design there is a decision most people skip: which Air Force 1 to paint on. It sounds like a detail and it is not, because the base shoe is the canvas, and the right blank makes the painting sing while the wrong one fights it the whole way. For most custom Air Force 1 commissions the strongest answer is the plain white low, and it is worth knowing why before you are tempted by something fancier.

The white Air Force 1 low is the base this studio supplies for a Signature, and it is the standard for a reason. White leather is a true blank: every colour laid on it reads as its real self, the way paint reads on a primed white canvas, so the design you approve is the design you get. A coloured base tints everything painted over it, a white flower on a grey shoe is not a white flower, and it narrows what a design can be before the brush is even loaded.

The low, rather than the high or the mid, gives the cleanest and largest field of leather. The high's ankle collar is more shoe and less canvas, and while it can be painted, it adds structure that a design then has to work around. If your heart is set on a high, it can absolutely be done, but go in knowing you are choosing a busier canvas, the same trade-off the AF1 versus Jordan piece describes between an open shoe and a structured one.

There are good reasons to choose a coloured or an unusual base, and they are all cases where the base is part of the idea rather than an accident. A black Air Force 1 for a design meant to glow out of the dark. A shadow or two-tone pair where the existing colours are the point. A specific colourway that means something to you. In those cases the base is chosen deliberately, and because it is not the studio's standard blank, the honest route is usually to ship us that exact pair.

That ship-in route is the answer whenever the base is not a plain white low. You buy or already own the precise Air Force 1 you want, in the colourway, the height and the size that suit you, and we paint that rather than a new blank. It removes any question of whether we can source your exact base, and it is laid out in ship in your own pair.

Condition matters if you are shipping your own. A brand-new or very clean pair takes paint best, because paint and sealer bond to clean leather and struggle over old grime, creases and previous coatings. A well-worn everyday pair can still be painted, and often a restoration is exactly the brief, but tell us its condition honestly so we prepare it properly rather than discovering it at the bench.

So the short version: for most people, let the studio supply the plain white low and put your energy into the design, which is where it belongs. Choose a special base only when the base itself is part of the meaning, and when you do, ship us the exact pair. Either way the design studio is where a commission begins.

The standard base is a brand-new white Nike Air Force 1 low in your size, painted freehand, sealed and waterproofed, in ten to fourteen working days at the bench for most designs. Painted by hand means the blank matters, because the canvas is half the work.

Tell us your design and we will tell you which base it truly wants.