If you’ve been to the city you’ve seen them: wooden construction walls around a building undergoing renovations, repairs, and additions. Those walls, usually painted a deep forest green, tend to bear a spraypainted warning: “POST NO BILLS.” It’s an alert that often goes unheeded, leading to walls of graffiti, flyers for shows and studio openings, art, and more. It’s hard not to see it as a manifestation of the city’s spirit, too big to be contained and too vibrant to be stifled by a sign. Those pine-green walls are canvases and the city always paints its heart out onto them in some way, shape, or form.
For LAAMS’s first pair of Forces, they’ve decked the silhouette out in that familiar forest green. The upper’s accents come in a lovely creamy off-white with flecks of sky-blue visible around the Swoosh. The interior sockliner features a collage of gig flyers, graffiti, and more, hidden just out of sight. There’s also a LAAMS logo on the inside of the tongue. Love letters to New York City are a dime a dozen; if you’re looking to win the city’s heart you better write straight from your own. Lucky for LAAMS, their missive is palpably sincere. The city—and all the sneakerheads in it—may have to keep them around.
The Nike x LAAMS Air Force 1 ‘Please Post Bills’ drops today, December 16, for $125 via the SNKRS app.