Walking on air: how Jordan propelled nerdy Nike into the stratosphere
In the spring of 1985, an American sports fan could buy a new pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s for $65. Fast forward to the present, and this week a pair of those same Jordans garnered a $1.8m (£1.45m) auction.
These numbers don't just speak to a meteoric rise of the Nike brand as a sportswear powerhouse valued at over £26 billion; they also illustrate the cultural cachet that a pair of sneakers can have, shoes whose influence today extends far beyond the white painted lines of the basketball court and into the worlds of music, fashion and even politics.
The Air Jordan brand was launched in collaboration with Michael Jordan - the best basketball player of his generation - and is instantly recognizable by the silhouette image of Jordan in full flight, the "Jumpman" logo.
But while Air Jordans were originally designed to be symbols of sporting achievement, they are now loved and worn by "winners" from different industries and continents.
Superstar rapper Drake didn't just name a song Jumpman in honor of his favorite shoes - he ordered a solid gold model for $2 million. And when the biggest names in football, Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and Lionel Messi, show up at Paris Saint-Germain, their shirts aren't emblazoned with a football logo; it's the Jordan silhouette that adorns their shirts.
The cultural significance of the brand was evident when director and civil rights activist Spike Lee visited the White House in 2012 to meet with America's first black president, Barack Obama. His gift to the Commander-in-Chief? A brand new pair of white Air Jordans for the man who had climbed higher than any colored politician in America's history.
The shoes are so ubiquitous in American pop culture that Jordans might be bracketed alongside American design classics such as the Model T Ford, but Nike's pre-Air Jordan history wasn't always so illustrious. The pre-Jordanian days are revisited in Air, a new film about the groundbreaking 1984 deal between Nike and Jordan. The film, which is directed by Ben Affleck and largely set at Nike headquarters in Portland, Oregon, is set in 1984 when Nike tried to sign Jordan, then a rising college basketball player.
In the spring of 1985, an American sports fan could buy a new pair of Nike Air Jordan 1s for $65. Fast forward to the present, and this week a pair of those same Jordans garnered a $1.8m (£1.45m) auction.
These numbers don't just speak to a meteoric rise of the Nike brand as a sportswear powerhouse valued at over £26 billion; they also illustrate the cultural cachet that a pair of sneakers can have, shoes whose influence today extends far beyond the white painted lines of the basketball court and into the worlds of music, fashion and even politics.
The Air Jordan brand was launched in collaboration with Michael Jordan - the best basketball player of his generation - and is instantly recognizable by the silhouette image of Jordan in full flight, the "Jumpman" logo.
But while Air Jordans were originally designed to be symbols of sporting achievement, they are now loved and worn by "winners" from different industries and continents.
Superstar rapper Drake didn't just name a song Jumpman in honor of his favorite shoes - he ordered a solid gold model for $2 million. And when the biggest names in football, Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and Lionel Messi, show up at Paris Saint-Germain, their shirts aren't emblazoned with a football logo; it's the Jordan silhouette that adorns their shirts.
The cultural significance of the brand was evident when director and civil rights activist Spike Lee visited the White House in 2012 to meet with America's first black president, Barack Obama. His gift to the Commander-in-Chief? A brand new pair of white Air Jordans for the man who had climbed higher than any colored politician in America's history.
The shoes are so ubiquitous in American pop culture that Jordans might be bracketed alongside American design classics such as the Model T Ford, but Nike's pre-Air Jordan history wasn't always so illustrious. The pre-Jordanian days are revisited in Air, a new film about the groundbreaking 1984 deal between Nike and Jordan. The film, which is directed by Ben Affleck and largely set at Nike headquarters in Portland, Oregon, is set in 1984 when Nike tried to sign Jordan, then a rising college basketball player.
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