Back in 1985, the first Air Jordan released in March. Nike was struggling for the first time in their decade-plus history, and with a lot riding on the rookie from North Carolina they decided to stack the deck. Michael Jordan debuted the shoe on-court in November, and ad campaigns ran for a full six months before they hit retail. As hoped, the demand built to a fever pitch, and by May Nike was getting back on track. Jordan wore the shoe for his first two full seasons (although he was injured for much of his second, he was back in it to score 49, 63, and, well, 19 points in a three-game Celtics first-round sweep), before the $100 Air Jordan II debuted at the start of the 1986-’87 season. The III came the following year around All-Star time, and that’s where the Air Jordan’s traditional debut would stay—until this year.
The Air Jordan XX9 releases tomorrow, and it still feels like an event. This is significant. After all, Jordan himself has been retired since 2003, and he’ll turn 52 in February. And plenty of new stars have emerged. LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, whose rookie seasons came the year after Jordan’s third and final retirement, are preparing to introduce their 12th and 11th signature shoes respectively. Kevin Durant, the reigning MVP, just re-upped with Nike following an over-the-top $250-plus million offer from Under Armour. Jordan’s own retro business is massive, setting the new Jordan not just against the signature shoes of other athletes, but against the ghost of the younger Jordan himself. Yet the debut of a new Air Jordan remains different.
For a while, this wasn’t the case. Following Jordan’s second retirement in 1998, and extending through his tenure with the Wizards and final retirement in 2003, Jordan (the brand) and the Air Jordan itself seemed to lose a bit of their magic. Tinker Hatfield, who’d helmed the Air Jordan design since 1988’s III, had moved on to other things, and the disciples who took over—while talented—just didn’t have that extra something. Their shoes didn’t either. Models like the XVII (which was an unprecedented $200 and came in a Mission Impossible briefcase) and the 2009 (inspired by fencing, of all things) weren’t as revolutionary as they were expensive. And without Hatfield to explain them (which he does better than anyone else) or Jordan to debut them on court in the case of the 2009, the mystique began to fade. Even doing away with the traditional numbering was a mistake.
Fortunately, these were correctable issues. Hatfield came back on board for the unfortunately portholed 2010, numbering went back to the original way with 2013’s shrouded XX8. And when Dwyane Wade left Jordan for Li-Ning, the flagship shoe once again became the sole property of Michael Jordan himself, or at least an idealized version of his younger self. “QUALITY INSPIRED BY THE GREATEST PLAYER EVER,” as it reads on the heel of the Air Jordan XII. The Air Jordan once again became the flagship basketball shoe in every sense of the word, and not just for Nike. Advances like the carbon fiber and Zoom Air based Flight Plate made for technological advances a player could actually feel.
There are literal events going on for the shoe in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, but the release of the shoe is an event in and of itself.
Which brings us to the Air Jordan XX9, the lightest Air Jordan ever, complete with a fully woven upper that provides unprecedented comfort (no, that’s not ad copy, but it could be). Which releases, as I may have mentioned, tomorrow. There are literal events going on for the shoe in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, but the release of the shoe is an event in and of itself. Still. Will it always be? Hard to say. As Jordan’s career continues to recede from view and as Hatfield again moves away from lead design duties (there are no concrete plans for him to do so that we know of, but at 62 he can’t do this forever), maybe the flagship shoe will once again lose importance. The remastering of retros should breathe new life into the older, already iconic models, and this is already a vastly different world with vastly different consumers, where people will line up overnight for the 25th different colorway of a 25-year-old sneaker.
All that said, the Air Jordan 30, or XXX, should drop around this time next year. It’s going to be huge. I can hardly wait.
Russ Bengtson is a senior staff writer at Complex and actually remembers when the Air Jordan 1 was released. You can follow him on Twitter here.
