The community in question? Skateboarders. All they needed was for a community to come around and pick them up. This resulted in a huge number of readily available, extremely cheap and durable sneakers stocked in stores around the US. The wave of hype had died, and the surplus Air Jordan 1 Highs sat on store shelves for years, experiencing one price drop after another. Everybody wanted a piece of the new AJ1 “Chicago”, and when initial stocks ran out, retailers requested for more – and so Nike sent them much, much more.Ĭontrary to expectations, Nike had in fact overestimated the demand and saturated the market with now-unwanted Jordans. In NYC’s bus stations, the majority of posters put up to advertise the release were stolen. Demand was so enormous that an entirely new market was created – the sneaker resale market, that eventually grew into today’s multi-billion dollar giant. The AJ1 Highs released in April 1985 to unprecedented sneaker hype. He was perfectly on-track to his destiny as a global sensation, and just as the world couldn’t get enough of Michael Jordan, sneakerheads couldn’t get enough of the Air Jordan 1s. Not even Peter Moore, designer of the AJ1 and then-Creative Director of Nike, could predict just how wrong Jordan was about his criticisms.īack to the rookie season – with Jordan finally convinced to wear the AJ1 High “Chicago”, he went on to become a NBA fan-favorite, averaging a whopping 28.2 points per game, becoming the second-ever rookie to average above 20 points per game. He also complained that he would “look like a clown” wearing AJ1s. Deciding to distinguish the shoes using color, Nike made the leap of producing one of the first-ever triple-colored basketball shoes, something that was unheard of at the time.Įven after the design was finalized, Jordan needed to be convinced to wear the sneakers, as he famously called the black and red color palette “the devil’s colors” (in reference to the colors of his college’s rival team, NC State). Much work had gone into getting the Air Jordan 1 High “Chicago” onto the court – with only a vague design concept provided by Jordan himself, Nike’s designers had worked tirelessly to create a shoe that fit MJ’s requirements of “different”, “exciting” and “low to the ground”. On his feet were never-before-seen Nike sneakers, draped in colors perfectly matched to his Bulls jersey. The year was 1984, and MJ was deep into his first NBA season as shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls. This begs the question, what was so special about the “Chicago” that led to its meteoric rise to grail status, propelling Jordan Brand into a multi-billion dollar business? To answer this, we need to return to where it all began: Michael Jordan’s Rookie Season. It’s not unreasonable to say that without this specific model, the current sneaker industry as we know it wouldn’t exist. The iconic red, white and black colorway saw Michael Jordan through his introduction to the NBA and kickstarted an entire era for sneakers around the globe. However, even within the existing grail status of most OG Air Jordans, there remains one specific colorway that stands above all-the Air Jordan 1 High “Chicago”. Since then, through the efforts of Nike and Jordan brand, the Air Jordan collection has expanded into an empire, with 37 (and counting) silhouettes in numerous colorways making record sales worldwide. Designed by Peter Moore and released in 1985 alongside the start of Michael Jordan’s rookie NBA season, the silhouette became inexplicably tied to the meteoric rise of one of basketball’s enduring legends.
Much like how difficult it is to imagine a NBA star more universally-known than Michael Jordan, it’s hard to imagine a Nike silhouette more iconic than the Air Jordan 1.
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