PUMA Max Q Hi

• MODEL: PUMA MAX Q HI
• TYPE: BASKETBALL
• MADE IN: TAIWAN
• MADE ON: 09/90
• ART.NO: 4340/1

PUMA’s high top basketball shoes from the 80′s and 90′s had some sort of magic that’s missing in their twenty first century releases. Simple synthetic materials, crazy layered uppers, unusual, experimentally cut designs, funky colorways, and tongue for days, all atop some thick and heavy, moon boot sole units. These features combined to create a powerful stomping sensation in the wearer, whether that be under the net or simply chillin’ on the sidelines.

What I love the most about this pair of vintage PUMA Max Q Hi’s from 1990 is their colorway. Mostly white with a touch of black and then splashes of purple, pink, and violet. The shoe is brave, throwing out what some might consider feminine colors against a silhouette that is anything but lady-like. In complimentary style the massive sole is constructed of variable density foam in its center and features brightly colored highlights of traction in the forefoot and heel.

But it doesn’t stop there, as it’s all in the details with these Max Q Hi’s. There’s a highrise ankle collar curving around the super cool bone-shaped tongue, which in turn shares an eye-catching mesh pattern with the lower front part of the upper. At this same spot the gorgeous form stripes cut upwards, their pink trim burying a tiny PUMA brand tag (in the same style featured on the more modern Sky Hi’s, only way better, more subtle), and these bizarre ‘knife-cut’ perforation slits on the toe box and side walls. That’s not all either, smaller details include the plastic eyelets higher on the shoe for a custom fit, as well as the double (and even triple) layered lower eyelets, patterned in some curious light grey stripes.

I could really go on for days discussing the attention that is paid to every last detail of this shoe. And what’s more, it’s not perfect. On the contrary it’s a total lab project, a brainstorm, a sketch. It’s honest, it’s wild, and it’s PUMA basketball at it’s very best. Let’s hope they take a look back in time and re-release some the madness they were putting out in the 80′s and 90′s, as it would no doubt have competitors’ heads bobbing in astonishment as happy high top connoisseurs dribbled past in flashy throwbacks.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol