How Air Jordans Became The Greatest Sneakers of All Time
The Air Jordan.
Nike’s greatest achievement.
The Jordan brand has a legacy that is unmatched. It made Michael Jordan a billionaire, allowed designers like Tinker Hatfield, Bruce Kilgore, and Peter Moore to achieve fame. And to date, the original retro sneakers still fetch thousands of dollars on the re-sale market.
They are the greatest shoes of all time. Point blank.
No one can debate Jordan’s legacy - the player or the shoe. But many folks have forgotten just how this shoe became so popular. Jordan's are a staple in Black Culture and American culture by and large. And one of my favorites too.
So today is an ode to the Air Jordan. Let’s kick it off proper…
THE BIRTH OF THE JORDAN 1
When Phil Knight Approached Michael Jordan about having his own sneaker, he was on his rookie deal with the Chicago Bulls. Nike was just starting to break through culturally.
Nevertheless, Jordan decided to work with the brand; after all, it was only fitting that he signed a shoe deal after coming into the league.
With that, their first collaboration, The Air Jordan 1, was born, making its debut during one of Jordan’s regular season games. This was in September 1985.
While the shoe was initially popular because Jordan was a promising young NBA player, the legend of the Air Jordan 1 grew in the months to follow when the NBA “Banned” The Sneaker from its courts.
For context, back in the eighties, NBA players weren’t allowed to wear just any type of clothing to the arena, especially not on the court. Because of that, every time Jordan wore his signature shoe, the league fined him $5000.
As Jordan’s myth continued to evolve on the court, his legend began to grow off the court eventually trickling into Hip-hop culture where…
LL Cool L Gave Jordans’ a Hip-Hop Co-Sign
Looking at the tweet below you’ll see that LL Cool J wore Jordan 1’s on the cover of his first album — at the time LL was THE GUY in rap too. This gave the Air Jordan a cool factor in urban culture.
The thing is, Jordan evangelists were already keen on wearing his sneakers because embodying “His Air-ness” was already a part of their agenda.
But, at the time, having a co-sign from Hip-hop meant that the street hustlers rocked with the shoe. And, like we’ve discussed on other posts, fashion usually starts with street culture, makes its way into art, and then life imitates art.
Once LL kicked the door open, it was only a matter of time. From there, the legend only grew; this time being powered by…
The Legend of The Jumpman
After the success of the Jordan 1, Nike pressed ahead with the second generation of the Jordan. However, Peter Moore, the original designer of the Jordan 1 ended up leaving Nike, and there were rumblings that MJ was unhappy with the first two sneakers. That’s when Tinker Hatfield entered the mix.1
Using sketches left behind by Peter Moore during his time at Nike, Tinker made some adjustments2 and eventually created what we know as the Jumpman Logo — possibly one of the most prolific logos in marketing history.
Jordan brand now had a brand identifier
With the Jumpman appearing on every sneaker starting with the Jordan III, sneakerheads now had their own “bat signal.” Anytime you saw Jordan, anytime he took flight, you thought of the Jumpman.
Mars Blackmon Said “It’s Gotta Be The Shoes”
After releasing the first Air Jordan, we all know what happened on the basketball court with Mike… He became the GOAT.
Championships, scoring titles, The Dream Team, MVP selections. You name it.
But, at the beginning of his career, something outside of basketball was happening that would bolster his popularity off the court (mind you, he didn’t need it - but still)
A young Black director named Spike Lee would release his first movie She’s Gotta Have It. And “She’s Gotta Have It” was historic because it was the first movie depicting a sneakerhead.
One of the main characters of She's Gotta Have It, Mars Blackmon (played by Spike Lee), was the epitome of a sneakerhead and his favorite shoe? The Air Jordan
This depiction of a sneaker head was arguably the first of its kind on film, and Wieden & Kennedy - nike’s longtime advertising partner stepped in to use it as a selling point.
Seeing the Mars Blackmon character as representation of what the culture was all about, and knowing that Spike Lee was on the rise, W&K reached out to Lee about using his character in a series of commercials with Michael Jordan. The combo of Michael Jordan and Mars Blackmon proved to be magic.
With Mars being an unofficial spokesperson for the Air Jordan between the 3s to the 6s3 Nike solidified another few years of popularity and more iterations of the shoe were guaranteed to follow - much of this was before MJ won his first title.
A Golden Era of Black Culture Kept The Brand Strong
The popularity of Jordan’s increased in the 90s as a new golden era of television starring Black talent came to the forefront. Shows starring actors like Kadeem Hardison, Martin Lawrence, and Will Smith began to paint a new picture of what Black youth looked like in America.
And though each show had a different storyline and cast, they were all connected by one thing: sneakers.
Re-runs of the Fresh Prince show a young Will Smith rocking what is now known as Retro Jordans - ranging from Air Jordan 5’s to 7’s and so on (in the picture below, Will has one Grape 5’s)
A Different World fans could see Kadeem Hardison’s affinity for Jordan’s on the regular - something he was adamant about being in control of when talking about his wardrobe with the ADW Crew.
And Martin stayed in some fresh sh*t whenever you saw him, even going as far as buying himself some Jordan’s from his shared bank account with Gina after she explicitly asked him not too. But in his defense… those joints were dope.
HIP-HOP FANS FELT THE NOSTALGIA
Towards the end of Jordan's career in the NBA, the popularity of the Air Jordan started declining. Believe it or not, you could find them for $20 in some places, and they weren’t exactly considered the holy grail of sneakers yet.
However, after Jordan’s last year with the Bulls, and his subsequent stint with the wizards, he retired from basketball for good. The restocks of the most iconic sneakers from the Jordan brand became sporadic and occasionally left shelves for good.
But that would eventually change as fashion in Hip-hop started shifting towards throwbacks. As more and more rappers began wearing throwback jersey's Jordan brand saw an opportunity to start restocking its shoes more frequently.
All of sudden…
THE ‘DEADSTOCK’ SHOES WERE ALIVE AGAIN
Nike began re-stocking some of the most popular Jordan’s more frequently. Sneaker enthusiasts were also forming communities like NikeTalk where they could buy and trade sneakers, and they’d even meet up in person for conventions to celebrate sneaker culture.
With Jordan’s making their way back into the market, it led to the birth of the re-sell market.
Now, I know what you’re thinking — people have always bought and sold sneakers. But the re-sale market as we know it was formed on the back of the Air Jordan re-stocks.
I mentioned this in an earlier post, but the re-stocks got so crazy (i.e. violent) that Nike had to create the SNKRS app to make the process more orderly.
HIPHOP CONTINUES TO EMBRACE THE NOSTALGIA OF THE AIR JORDAN
In tandem with Millenial nostalgia hiphop was key in keeping Jordan’s legacy alive - both the player and the shoes.
From lyrics to album covers, you’ll see that hip-hop has an affinity for Jordans, and much like Ralph Lauren Polo Jordan’s have never gone out of style.
So, What Now?
There are tons of reasons that factor in the popularity of the Air Jordan — I’m sure there are more that I left out (I’ll let the OG sneaker heads debate it) but the most important factor is probably the man wearing the shoes: Michael Jordan.
As I look at the few pair in my closet, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to snag a few more. There are some Jordan 1’s dropping in November - I’ll keep you posted on what happens.
Peace.
Nice Kicks does a great overview of the history of the Jordan 1 and it’s log
Shoutout to Logo My Way for breaking down the creation of the Jumpman logo