Banned design – backlash or marketing trick
The Air Jordan 1 (I) was designed by Peter Moore and marked a new era in basketball shoewear design. There has been multiple fakes of this shoe and also other shoe brands made models where you could see lots of similarities with Air Jordan 1 (I).
The Air Jordan 1 (I) – Black / Varsity Red model was banned by the NBA back in 1985 due to NBA color rules and this actually helped to create more publicity and interest for the shoes. Who knows, it might have been a marketing trick from Nike.
A great thing with the Original (OG) Air Jordan 1 (I)‘s were that they came with a double set of laces to match the two different colors the shoe was made up in. For instance the black/red’s came with one set of black laces and one set of red laces.
When talking about colors it should also be said that the Air Jordan 1 (I)‘s were the Air Jordan’s that were released in the most colorways of all Air Jordans. 23 colorways (samples included) even beats the number of Air Jordan 11 (XI) retros.
Retro – demands change
The Air Jordan 1 (I) Retro 1994 – White / Black – Red and black/red were released as retros in 1994 and sold very poorly. Noone seemed to want them. They went on sale for $20 at some stores in the US.
In 2001 they re-retroed them and this time around the demand was a lot greater. At some stores they sold out in just a few minutes. I bet a few of the people buying them was wishing they were around back in ’94…
