Deep Royal Blue Debuts on the Jordan 1 Retro Mid
The Air Jordan 1 is the trainer that started it all, marking the beginning of the most iconic lineage of trainers in history. In many ways, it's responsible for launching modern-day trainer culture as a whole - and it almost didn't happen.
History of Air Jordan 1
As the story goes, the year was 1984, and Chicago Bulls' rookie Michael Jordan was a hot commodity for endorsement deals, with trainers naturally being paramount.
Jordan had just come off a stellar college basketball season at the University of North Carolina. He wore Converse and was a personal fan of Adidas, so he took meetings with both companies, but they never reached a deal. It seems strange today, but at the time, Michael Jordan hated Nike - so much so that he refused to take a meeting with them.
He was persuaded by his mother, Deloris Jordan, to visit the Nike campus in Oregon and listen to their pitch. His plan was to go through the motions to appease his parents and agent but he ultimately left with a contract unlike any other.
Rather than walking in the shadows of established athletes like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (which may have been the case had he signed elsewhere), Michael Jordan shone in the Nike limelight. He was paid more than any other athlete with a trainer endorsement at the time. Nike made him the face of its growing presence in basketball, and gave him his own trainer line - called Air Jordan.
The Air Jordan 1 got a patriotic redesign in 2018 with the release of the Deep Royal Blue colourway on its mid-top design. White coats the base of this full leather upper on its perforated toe top, tongue, and side panels. Deep Royal Blue then introduces itself on the toe and heel mudguards, the eyelets, and ankle cuffs. Black appears on the Nike Swoosh, the ankle, the lateral Wings logo, and on the front Jordan Jumpman tag. Red laces and a red Jordan Jumpman logo highlight this release. The trainer is underlined by an off-white midsole and a black outer sole, the latter of which features a Jordan logo stamped into its heel in the same rich black tone.
