Nike Mad 90 Pack: Passion Over Hype with Titi Finlay
An influential voice in sneaker culture, particularly advocating for women in the industry, Titi made a mark with her bold typographic prints and designs which also netted a personal Air Max 90 collab, quite a landmark for this Scottish-born artist.
All of this made Titi the perfect creative to collaborate with for the Mad 90 pack, creating a series of poster prints to represent the four models. We caught up with Titi at her London studio for the poster reveal and to delve deeper into the Air Max connection.
Her first memories of Air Max go back to the 90s. Not release calendars or resale talk, just seeing the shoe in the wild. Her uncle and his mates wearing them around town, listening to hip hop, looking like the coolest people in the world. At school, she wanted a pair and was never allowed. Later, after moving to London, Air Max culture became something she could step into properly. Her own money, her own taste, the pairs she had wanted when she was younger finally within reach.
That is part of what makes the Air Max 90 different. It is not just a trainer people remember. It is tied to who they were when they first noticed it. The music around it, the people wearing it, the places it turned up. For Titi, the silhouette opened up a wider passion for sneakers, but also for the stories that sit behind them.
“Everything from the franchise storytelling to the way people styled the shoe just spoke to me. It awakened this passion for sneakers in general, and Air Max in particular.”
With the Mad 90 Pack, Nike is bringing together two different kinds of memory. On one side, the boot archive: Hypervenom’s close-control chaos, Mercurial’s speed and threat, Total 90’s power and strike-zone attitude, Tiempo’s softer feel and touch. On the other, the Air Max 90, a trainer that has moved through club culture, grime, garage, football, art and streetwear without losing its shape.
Titi sees that cultural pull clearly, especially in London.
“Where the north leans more into the 95, I think the Air Max 90 is iconic to London. Club culture, garage, grime, football, art. It really represents London’s nuanced tapestry of people and has a lot of nostalgia tied to it.”
That London lens matters. The Mad 90 Pack is not just a boot reference dropped onto a lifestyle shoe. It works because the Air Max 90 can hold different worlds at once. It can take a football story, a colour hit, a graphic detail or a piece of personal nostalgia and still feel like itself.
For Titi, that flexibility is the appeal. The Air Max 90 has been reworked hundreds of times, through colourways, hybrids and collaborations, yet it still keeps its identity. That gives artists room to move.
“Everyone brings their own connection to it, and that opens the door to really rich stories and concepts.”
Her posters for the Mad 90 Pack sit in that space. They are not trying to explain each shoe like a product sheet. They pull from colour, attitude and feeling. The point is to let each model carry its own energy, the same way the original boots did. Hypervenom feels loud and sharp. Mercurial feels fast before it has even moved. Total 90 has that graphic, heavy-contact confidence. Tiempo slows things down through texture and control.
That is the strength of the pack from a creative point of view. You can know the boots, remember the players and understand every reference. You can also come to it through colour, shape and mood. The designs still speak.
When Titi first saw the lifestyle and football crossover behind the Mad 90 idea, the reaction was immediate.
“I thought it was a bit of me. I love a bright colour.”
It also felt right for now. Football has always influenced how people dress, from terraces to matchday trainers to shirts worn nowhere near a stadium. What feels different now is the scale and openness of it. The culture has moved past small pockets and local codes into something more global, more visible and more personal.
“I think there’s always been a red thread that ties these spaces together. Terrace culture was always about flexing the outfit and sneakers as much as it was about enjoying the match, but now it feels on a global scale rather than in smaller subcultures.”
That shift is important. Football style is not only being shaped by the usual voices anymore. Titi points to the energy coming from female and queer communities, where football is being worn, reworked and expressed in new ways. Not everyone enters the culture through the same door. Some arrive through clubs. Some through shirts. Some through sneakers, music, styling, art or community. The Mad 90 Pack makes sense in that moment because it is already crossing lines: boot archive into Air Max, performance memory into off-pitch style.
For Titi, the Air Max 90 has always been a shoe that lets people show something of themselves.
“To me, wearing 90s says a lot about who you are, what music you’re into, the communities you’re part of, and how you choose to express yourself.”
That is where Passion Over Hype lands. The Mad 90 Pack has big names behind it, but the strongest pull is not just nostalgia. It is what happens when those names are opened up again. A football boot becomes a trainer. A trainer becomes a poster. A poster becomes another way into the story.
The icons are already there. Titi’s work gives them a new surface.
