The Best Air Jordans of 2021

Release Date: September 27

Price: $225

Billie Eilish appeared in her first Jordan Brand campaign in 2018, alongside Don C and Russell Westbrook, at just 16 years old. She was relatively unknown back then, bubbling in certain music circles, but yet to see the type of stardom that would soon follow. Little did we know at the time, it set the foundation for what would become one of the more unexpected-yet-organic Air Jordan collaborations in recent memory. The fact she’d shared her admiration of the Air Jordan 15 on her 2019 episode of Sneaker Shopping only added to the allure, explaining at the time that she “love[s] things other people hate.” So while the neon green AJKO that also dropped may have been the safer choice, the earth tone-colored Air Jordan 15 connected on a more meaningful level, and even brought some excitement to the oft-maligned silhouette. Personal touches were overt in approach but subtle in execution, highlighted by fully vegan builds utilizing at least 20 percent recycled materials. Eilish’s profile has grown exponentially since that first Jordan Brand shoot, and it will be exciting to see how the partnership can evolve in the future. —Zac Dubasik

Release Date: April 10

Price: $190

Serving as an homage to Michael Jordan’s days with the Chicago Bulls, the Air Jordan 5 “Raging Bull” returned this year for the first time since its original drop in 2009. Twelve years ago this “Toro Bravo” iteration was paired with a more subtle black 3M pair, both housed in a special box resembling a wooden crate with menacing bull eyes peering through its planks. While it was just a single box this time around, the same special detailing still made its way over. Decked out in fiery red suede, this Air Jordan 5 is certainly one of the boldest takes on Jordan’s fifth signature shoe, and it is one of the more admired non-original colorways on the silhouette. Hard to pull off or not, “Raging Bulls” still managed to sell out the numerous times they dropped in 2021 and will cost you close to $100 over retail on the resale market. Love or hate Jordan 5s, there’s no doubt that the “Raging Bulls’’ are one of the best. —Ben Felderstein

Release Date: February 13

Price: $200

It’s always nice when an original Air Jordan colorway is given the OG treatment by Jordan Brand when it gets a retro release. This year, we were given the “Carmine” 6s complete with “Nike Air” branding hits for the first time since 1991 to celebrate the 6’s 30th anniversary. While we have seen Carmine retros before, once in 2008 as part of a CDP pack and again in 2014, neither previous release was given the highly desired “Nike Air” embroidery on the heel. Unfortunately, some customers were treated to defective pairs with pink stains fresh out of the box due to the red dye from certain parts of the upper bleeding onto the white midsole, but this issue luckily didn’t ruin every single set that hit the market. Production mishap or not, the “Carmine” 6 still promptly sold out upon release back in February. Even if the 6 isn’t quite as popular as other Air Jordans like the 1 or 4 these days, the Carmines will always get people excited when they come back. There’s just something about that red nubuck. —Mike DeStefano

Release Date: August 28

Price: $220

Originally released in 2006 as part of Jordan Brand’s LS (Lifestyle) line catered more toward casual wear than the courts, the “Lightning” Air Jordan 4 dropped as an online exclusive alongside the less-loud Thunder variation. Both styles were inspired by Michael Jordan’s motorsport racing team. The Lightning came with a T-shirt and a $250 price tag, while the black-based Thunder variation was bundled with a jacket at $500. Considering standard Air Jordan 4 retros were priced at $115 back then, the sticker shock and internet exclusivity was enough to steer casual consumers away from the pack, leading to it becoming even scarcer as the years went by. The Thunder pair would see a re-release in 2012, but it would be almost another decade before people had a chance to pick up the Lightning version. This time, they were $220 and didn’t come with a T-shirt, but one could make a case that the loud yellow pair fits even better into today’s style than it did in 2006. —Riley Jones

Release Date: February 10

Price: $190

This could have been the sneaker of the year, certainly the Jordan of the year, but here we are at number 5. So where did it all go wrong? A Trophy Room x Air Jordan 1 was supposed to be a homerun collaboration. Tie in the fact that the shoe was inspired by Michael Jordan being frozen out of the All-Star Game his rookie year, it only added to the allure of the design. But then all the BS happened. It looked like a large number of pairs of the shoe were backdoored by the retail operation Trophy Room, which is owned by Michael Jordan’s son Marcus Jordan. Resellers were posting images of them possessing a lot of shoes and disclosing how much they paid for them. While we don’t have 100 percent confirmation that this happened, reliable sources across the industry agree that something fishy went on with the sneakers. With that said, it’s still a good shoe. You don’t see people wearing them as much as you thought you would. And they’ve faded out of the conversation. It also doesn’t help that this fiasco was at the top of the year, either. So here we are. Trophy Room’s at number five. Who would have thunk it? —Matt Welty

Release Date: December 11

Price: $225

The Air Jordan 11’s holiday releases may have lost some of the luster they had in the 2010s, but the model still has the potential to get people fired up. The Jordan 11 is known for being one of the brand’s most-produced shoes (it’s often called out as such during quarterly meetings), with pairs known to exceed the 1-million unit mark. Still, when you’re talking about colorways as popular as the Concord or this year’s Cool Grey, it really doesn’t matter how many are made, people are still going to eat them up. 

Last seen in 2010, the 2021 Cool Grey marks this colorway’s first release in the current remastered Air Jordan 11 mold, and it should be more than enough to keep fans of the sneaker satisfied. There’s an ample patent leather cut, smooth nubuck, and the literal icing on the cake, an icy rubber outsole. Even the pickiest of purists will be hard-pressed to find something to complain about with these. —Riley Jones

Release Date: July 29 (High), August 13 (Low)

Price: $200 (High), $150 (Low)

Now feels like a weird time to be rewarding a giant hype machine of a collaboration from Travis Scott given the recent deaths that occurred at Astroworld Festival in Houston. The tragic event is a marker of what it looks like when hype, raging, and the frenzy around idol worship goes too far. It’s misguided to connect that too closely to his sneakers, but they’re still part of the same conversation.

That context aside, this duo of Air Jordan 1s, featuring a High and a Low, combined two of the most successful Jordan Brand equations to form one massive output. There’s Hiroshi Fujiwara’s cool and plain color selection, which looks better here on the Low than on the High, despite the latter being the more favored silhouette right now. There’s the Cactus Jack signature of wigged out Swooshes, spun backward here with the same force that pulsates through the rapper’s best product. Everything around Travis Scott feels particularly morose right now, but for people who can look past the cloud hanging over his career, these sneakers are a bright spot. —Brendan Dunne

Release Date: November 12

Price: $250

Nobody had any idea when the Off-White x Air Jordan 2 Lows released (and even when we debated this list) how poignant this sneaker would become. In addition to its significance as the last Jordan Brand collab Virgil Abloh launched before his passing, it’s an exceptional example of what made his work so special. It had all of his signature touches, like the customary text, zip tie, and deconstructed details. But it also told detailed stories of the original design, utilizing scans of a personal pair that belonged to Michael Jordan that had long since crumbled, and painstakingly re-created the toe box’s original shape. Even the rollout exemplified Abloh’s ethos, as he debated the shoe’s merits in the comments section of Instagram, explaining design choices like why he picked the low-cut version of the Air Jordan 2 over the high. It’s too early to say if we’ll see more of Abloh’s Jordan Brand projects released posthumously, but if they don’t, this will serve as a fitting bookend to his Air Jordan legacy. —Zac Dubasik

Release Date: April 28

Price: $200

The Air Jordan 3 from A Ma Maniére, the sneaker store owned by ascendant retailer James Whitner, had it all. There was the moving introduction to the shoe: a black-and-white video dedicated to the strength of Black women. The sneaker itself was inspired partly by Whitner’s own mother buying him Jordan 3s as a child. There was its status as a women’s sneaker, an important symbolic choice for a group that has long been underserved in the world of collectible sneakers. There was the colorway, an elegant combination of greys and soft whites that managed not to suffer the fate of so many women’s sneakers of being just too saccharine. There were the actual design changes to the Jordan 3—a cherished retro model—that veered far enough from its original makeup by replacing elephant print with suede but also reined things back in with a purist touch via the “Nike Air” branding on the heel.

Most importantly, there was a release that felt fair, which is not an easy thing to do in sneakers in 2021. Whitner made sure that women were prioritized when the sneakers were first rolled out and also worked to cut down on the number of bot orders seeking to compromise the online launch. From story to colorway to retail release, the A Ma Maniére x Air Jordan 3 did everything right. —Brendan Dunne