Designer Jason Mayden Breaks Down The Jordan 2009

MIDSOLE/CHASSIS

Jason Mayden: With the Jordan 2009, we have this chassis portion, and we wanted to design it with the idea of the “1 of 1.” Consumers, when they buy Jordans, want to have a unique experience. There is a certain quality and a certain luxury that is expected coming from our product. What we wanted to do was give each user a unique detail, so the the TPU is mixed in a way that it mimics blown glass and creates a unique look each time. For the chassis, inspiration comes from Dale Chihuly, the glass artist. We want each consumer to feel unique and feel as if they have their own brand Jordan experience. The chassis works in conjunction with the APT and helps with the heel fit and that midfoot protection that we talked about.

Complex: Why blown glass?

Jason Mayden: Dale Chihuly was one of my inspirations just because of his process of creation. To me, blown glass captures a raw emotion. It's a physical example of capturing time. The TPU is functional, and works in tandem with the carbon plate and the heel piece, but there is an emotional side to it as well. This glass-look is the idea of slowing time down, almost like a frozen moment captured in the shoe. People talk about MJ, saying that he defied the laws of gravity, that he defied the laws of time and space. This is kind of those ideas brought into a physical piece.

UPPER

Jason Mayden: On the toe cap here, we use a panache leather. It's a polishable dress shoe leather, and again, this is something that ties back to the luxury details in MJ's life and how he carries himself off the court. We wanted a sophisticated, elegant leather, but at the same time this is a durable leather, it's not gonna break down over time. Another key element of the upper is these satin pleats, a design that we kind of took from the sport of fencing.

Complex: Fencing?

Jason Mayden: Well, let me take a step back for a second. The Jordan shoes always have these big picture ideas that inspire them. For this shoe, we wanted to do something different, to think of an idea that we hadn't touched on with previous Jordan shoes.

Complex: Right

Jason Mayden: Two years ago, when we sat down with MJ, he talked about doing something different. He wanted to give the consumer something that they didn't expect. A lot of times people say that what MJ did with the ball made him who he was. In Micheal’s mind though, what he did without the ball had as much to do with it as what he had to do with it. MJ was a tenacious defender, and he always talks about using his defense to get his offense going.

Jason Mayden: So when we came to the table, the first thing we looked at were sports that were based in defense. Most of the defensive sports are the martial arts and sports like boxing, fencing, etc. These sports all focus on defense as the tactic as opposed to the attack being the tactic. A lot of the time when you look at basketball, or when you look at football, there are all of these accolades for people who score points. But for MJ, his biggest accomplishment was when they said he can shut down anyone on the court and then going on to score 63 points. So trying to take that defensive mindset and apply it to the shoe, we wanted to get some context. That's where we got the fencing idea from.

Fencing makes sense as an inspiration for a basketball shoe, and specifically for MJ's shoe because MJ always talks about his footwork. Michael worked countless hours on his footwork, always trying to manipulate the distance between himself and an opponent. The whole shoe itself is based on defense and deception, from MJ's standpoint.

So to bring it back around to fencing, when you look at the sport of fencing and the way that those athletes use footwork and use certain tactics and strategies, it's similar to the way basketball players have to understand where their opponent is in space. The fencing idea was an easy marriage.

Complex: I don't know a lot about fencing, is the satin part of the uniforms?

Jason Mayden: Well the satin pleats is a nod to the clean visual aesthetic of fencing. Coupled with the panache leather, we tie the shoe to the sophistication of the sport of fencing.

Complex: Is there any performance element to these pleats, or is it strictly aesthetic?

Jason Mayden: What happens with pleats is that when you pleat an object or pleat a material it cuts down on the amount of material you have to use to get support. What we did was we created an upper that forms to the shape of your foot both internally and externally. When you lace this pleated upper together, it actually cinches your foot down in the shoe so you're not moving around and slipping as much inside.

A lot of time you'll hear basketball players talk about movement creating foot injury, 'cause the shoe is too loose. The pleats in conjunction with the Achilles pads in the heel give a really tight, solid fit. So the pleats cut down on overall weight, because we are using less material, and they help get a snug fit through the way the upper gets laced up.

Complex: What about these mesh pieces here in the upper?

Jason Mayden: The metal mesh? This is an MJ detail. When we broke down the defensive story we were thinking about how we might talk about his defensive aspect and his idea was this screen, this mask idea. If you've ever seen a fencing mask, you know that you can see their face but you can't see everything. These monofilament mesh hits complete the fencing story, and also add a little ventilation for the shoe. The mesh is part of that defensive, deception story.

Complex: Interesting.

Jason Mayden: There's one more element of the upper that I want to show you. On the back we added these injection PU dots for grip. Most traditional basketball shoes use a heel tab or some sort of an overlay for a person to get grip when they pull their shoe up. But what we wanted to do was integrate it and simplify it. This simultaneously makes the shoe lighter (for speed) and it also makes it look more sophisticated.

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