Virgil Abloh Breaks Down His Off-White x Air Jordan 5 Collaboration

Image via Nike

"Jordan, to me, only after this amount of time, is a symbol of unity, "Abloh said in the interview. "He’s a benchmark for excellence. Those two things in a pop culture atmosphere, as you said, as we discussed, as a role model, are very, very rare in a state like this. Usually, someone who’s that known for a specific thing is kind of like a pop star for the moment. They’re putting out content that’s an exchange. I think that’s what’s amazing about why a brand like Jordan is important. Long after his career of putting the ball through the hoop, when he did that, it has a lasting impression and means something more."

"Jordan and his ability to unite and what this campaign means as far as what we’re doing around All-Star — is literally uniting the city. Uniting — this is a global message about it doesn’t matter if Michael Jordan looks like me, like, almost like no one flies alone-type thing. Because that’s the other part about the Jordan narrative, is when I watched him and even when I recall the nuances of the victories or the losses, he made his team better."

"And I’m a consumer, by the way. It’s like this is the kid that was waiting in line the first time the Jordans were coming out. Not the retro, the first time. … I’m not like, ‘Change the color,’ which is a common practice of a Nike collaboration. … I’m from the beginning, so I’m, like, do the exact same color that you did before, just change the minute details so I get that feeling like I did the first time. I’ve bought the different colorways. I’ve seen them. I want something that emotionally connects me to the product."

"What’s interesting about this, which I’ll reveal at a later date, is the 100% design. Even though the shoes that are out now, people think that those are the finished idea. They’re not. There’s a DIY element that completes the finished idea, which is the idea that it’s kind of like air. The hole, what is the circle? You actually cut away that material so there’s holes in the actual shoe."

"The Jordan 5, this is the very first shoe that I convinced my parents to buy. It was too expensive. So I had to use extra ingenuity. This was the very first Jordan that I bought out of Foot Locker, like brand-new. The black colorway comes into play [during the NBA playoffs]. The Superman cape comes in the playoffs. They’re dropping another colorway because he’s about to go blackout at the end of the season. When he would shoot in warmups with the white outfit with the black and it was your first time seeing a colorway, not on Hypebeast, not on the internet, just on the TV. Insane."