Nike SB Air Force 1 x Yuto Hands Horigome the Hoops Shoe Instead of the Dunk

Nike SB is giving Yuto Horigome his own Air Force 1 on September 15, and the choice of shoe says more than the colorway does. Horigome is the most decorated street skater competing, a back-to-back Olympic gold medalist, and the usual reward for that inside Nike SB is a Dunk. He got the 1982 basketball shoe instead, in Light Bone and Iron Grey over a Washed Coral midsole, at $125. The pair surfaced back in June with no date attached. It has one now.

The Air Force 1 arrived in late October 1982 as a basketball shoe designed by Bruce Kilgore, and Nike’s release copy for this pair calls it the first basketball sneaker to house Nike Air. That line gets repeated everywhere, and Nike’s own longer Air Force 1 history stops short of the word first, so read it as Nike framing rather than settled fact. What is settled is what came after. The shoe nearly lapsed, a small group of retailers kept ordering it, and it became the highest-volume sneaker the company makes. Skateboarding found it without any help from Nike, long before Nike SB existed, because an Air Force 1 is a thick leather upper on a flat sole and that covers most of what a skate shoe needs. Nike SB has built the silhouette properly a handful of times since, but the Dunk has always been the house shoe and the Air Force 1 has always been the side project. That is the context this release is arguing with.

The build is an SB Air Force 1 rather than a general-release one, with a padded tongue, a thicker collar, and the encapsulated Air heel unit Nike says carries over from the hoops original. The upper is Light Bone leather with mesh quarter panels, and Iron Grey lands on the Swoosh, the collar lining and the heel. Underneath sits a Washed Coral midsole, a muted pink that reads sun-faded rather than pastel, and that single choice is where the aged look comes from. The personal marks are small and mostly out of sight. Horigome’s cross-feather family crest is stamped on the outer heel. His lucky number 7 sits on the heel tab. His name is printed on the Nike SB tongue label, the sockliners are custom, the lace dubrae carries an antique finish, and a second set of laces in the same coral as the midsole ships in the box. Nothing on the shoe shouts, which is why Nike’s own product photography is mostly close crops.

Nike SB has spent the last few years handing its biggest names shoes that are not Dunks, and that reads as strategy rather than accident. The Dunk got too large to work as a reward. Putting a two-time Olympic champion on the Air Force 1 does two things at once. It gives the silhouette a skate story it has never formally had inside Nike SB, and it gives Horigome a shoe that will not price itself out of his own audience on the first morning. The palette helps. Light Bone and a faded coral will not photograph as loudly as a Dunk in team colors, and a $125 SB with a low ceiling is the kind of shoe that reaches skate shops instead of a resale graph. Whether Nike planned that outcome or simply wanted the Air Force 1 back in the SB rotation, the result is the same.

At $125 this sits $10 above a general-release Air Force 1, which Nike lists at $115 for the standard ’07, and level with the Kobe Air Force 1 Low carried on nike.com at $125. For a signature shoe from a skater with two Olympic golds that is restrained. Nike charged nothing extra for the name, the second lace set or the custom sockliners, which is unusual at this profile and is the clearest sign the shoe is meant to be skated rather than shelved.

The Nike SB Air Force 1 x Yuto in Light Bone and Iron Grey releases September 15, with Nike’s launch page listing a 7:00 AM start, style IO8439-100, at $125. It goes up on SNKRS and nike.com. Nike SB skate-shop accounts normally receive an allocation of a signature release at this level, so the shops are worth checking the same morning.

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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