A Visit With the Jordan 1 Retro 89 Green Glow
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 Jordan 1 Retro 89 Green Glow is just one of the available editions that come in colourways of black, white, Cement Grey, Green Glow, and Fire Red. The general edition was released in 2013, and the Green Glow version comes with a black leather upper and has accents of green glow. Each Jordan 1 Retro release has the year of the inspirational shoe's release date. The Jordan Retro 89 takes inspiration from the Air Jordan IV, which was released in '89. The shoes retain the base design of the Jordan 1 but also have mesh side panels and a "Flight" logo on the upper shoe tongue, all of which are design elements from the Air Jordan IV.
