A history of the Air Jordan trainers

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A beautiful partnership began in 1985, Nike and the greatest basketball player who ever played the game, Michael Jordan signed a sponsorship deal. Michael at this stage was still fresh faced and a relative youngster, he had just signed for the Chicago Bulls in 1984.

He did have pedigree however, performing wonders in North Carolina and for the American Olympic team, who were on home soil in 1984. Below is a picture of the original Jordan mark 1 shoe,

The shoe went on sale in 1985, but it was unveiled by the man himself during his 1984 debut season for the Bulls. The colours obviously matched the playing strip of the Bulls, the team the shoes were unveiled (Nov 17th, 1984) against was the Philadelphia 76'ers.

The NBA did actually contribute to the popularity of the shoes. They banned it, and each time Michael played in them they fined him. Of course the publicity of the fines created a massive hype around the mark 1's.

Why did the NBA ban the shoes?, over a trivial matter, they did not allow shoes to contain either black or red colouring. A curious fact about the mark 1 jordans was that Nike supplied two sets of laces with each pair, one set of laces were red and the other black.

Since the original release of the mark 1's there has been numerous retro re-releases of the shoe. In 1994, with poor sales, in 2001 with strong sales, and in 2003-4 with a leather version.

To date there has been over twenty one different versions of the Jordan trainer. My personal favourite is still the mark 1 version, but I also like the Air Jordan VI. The simplicity of the mark 1's is what I love, they are not too bulky or wide, and the high ankle support gives it a certain style.

The combination of suede and leather, a simple logo instead of a huge jumpman logo and the contrast of white, red and black make it a winner for me. The later versions like the XV, | XV, XVII and XVIII went too far from normal conventions for me. The designs too elaborate, the silliness of removable midfoot covers, overall far too outlandish.