The Signature Line
Six signature models, one moulded shell that changed what a basketball shoe could look like, and a puppet that talked more than anybody on the floor. This is the record of the Nike Air Penny line and the Air Foamposite One — kept here, first-hand.
Where it starts
Nearly every shoe on this page traces back to the same designer. Eric Avar drew the Air Max Penny 1 in 1995, carried the line through the Air Penny 2, and — working without a brief, on an idea he had been chasing since 1994 — produced the Air Foamposite One.
What made the line unusual was not the silhouettes. It was that the feedback loop stayed open. Penny liked the first shoe's look but wanted more out of it underfoot, and that conversation is what produced the second. The Foamposite arrived the same way: a piece of pure experimentation that found the right player.
Model by model
The first signature shoe, and the first release in Nike's Uptempo line. Air Max2 in the heel, Tensile Air in the forefoot — the cushioning Nike would later rename Zoom Air. It launched in three colourways: the black, blue and white ‘Orlando’, a black and blue ‘Away’ and a white and blue ‘Home’.
Built for the 1996–97 season and drawn, again, by Eric Avar. Penny had told him what the first shoe needed to do better on court, and the second model is the answer to that note — an evolution of the Air Max Penny rather than a reset.
The third signature model, released for the 1997–98 season — the same period in which the Air Foamposite One entered the story. It has returned to retail since, including a later run of the ‘Eggplant’ colourway.
The fourth model, and the last Air Penny Nike released while Penny was an active NBA player. Everything after it is a line looking back at itself.
The line restarted more than a decade after the fourth model, this time under designer Marc Dolce — foam cushioning with an Air Max unit in the heel, and wave lines across the upper that quote the earlier Pennys.
First shown in late 2014 and released the following year. It pulls its lines from the original Air Max Penny — the most recent numbered entry in the line.
Air Foamposite One · 1997
Eric Avar had the idea in 1994 and spent close to three years making it play basketball. There was no brief. The question he kept asking was what would happen if you dipped a foot into a bath of liquid material and let it set around you — and then went and played in it.
The answer was a seamless moulded upper, formed from liquid polyurethane poured into a heated mould, with the shape itself taken from the hard, curved shell of a beetle. It landed at $180 in 1997, in a royal blue that nothing else on a shelf looked like.
Penny got hold of an early sample, influenced the final build, and wore them through the 1997 season. The shoe and the player have been attached ever since.
Around the shoes
The campaign was conceived and pitched by Stacy Wall at Wieden+Kennedy: a puppet version of Penny with none of his restraint, doing all the talking he would not do himself. Chris Rock voiced him.
The first spot, ‘Locker Room’, aired in November 1995 and opens on Penny lacing the Air Max Penny. The campaign ran for roughly two years and pulled in cameos from Tyra Banks, Tiger Woods, Ken Griffey Jr., Michael Johnson and Spike Lee, among others.
On 20 February 2024, Nike launched an apparel line pairing University of Memphis athletics branding with the 1 Cent mark — the first time the two have been put on the same piece of clothing for the public rather than for Penny himself.
The line covers tees, long sleeves, hoodie tees, hoodies and quarter-zips, and at launch was sold through the Tiger Bookstore, Dick's Sporting Goods and Fanatics Lids College.
Still dropping
Shop the Foamposites