The Rise of Air Jordan

Roughly 1.2 billion sneakers were made in 2023. Now imagine if you lined up all those pairs of sports shoes. You could circle the globe with them more than seven times!

This is great news for sneakerheads — people who are fans of sneaker history and culture, and who sometimes buy shoes not just to wear but collect, too. But all sneakers are not created equal. Over time, one sneaker has risen above the rest. This is the sneaker that sneakerheads celebrate and even compete to collect more than any other. 

The Air Jordan is made by the sports clothing company Nike. Bleacher Report ranks it as #1 on its list of best 24 signature shoes of all time, describing it as “the first signature shoe to really set things off.” Business Insider ranks it as #1 on its list of the most important sneakers of all time.

But what sets the Air Jordan apart? What makes this sneaker so popular? The answer might be a mix of things: timing, a little rule breaking… oh, and getting a rising basketball star to put their name on your shoe might help a little, too.

The Rise of Sneaker Culture

The Air Jordan wouldn’t have been as popular as it is today if it wasn’t for the rising popularity of sneakers in general. Sneaker culture first emerged in New York City in the 1970s. Elizabeth Semmelhack, a fashion historian and Senior Curator at the Bata Shoe Museum, a museum of footwear based in Toronto, Canada, says sneaker culture came out of a mix of basketball, music, and fashion. 

At the time, hip hop was beginning to take off. A key part of hip hop culture was breakdancing. As Semmelhack explains, “‘breaking,’ which was a very athletic and competitive form of dance, like basketball, required shoes that worked really well.” But breakers weren’t just looking for comfort. They also wanted to look “fresh.” Many looked to the Clydes, the sneaker that was made by the company PUMA for New York Knicks star Walt Frazier. This established a pattern for sneaker popularity, says Semmelhack: “Certain types of sneakers become important both for their usability, for their form and function, but also the fashion statement that could be made.”

A Breakout Star

During the 1980s, hip hop became more and more popular. But something else happened that decade that would help transform the way we looked at sneakers — not just locally but around the world. In 1984, Nike signed a deal with rookie basketball star Michael Jordan. At the time, Nike wasn’t the world-famous brand that it is today. They were a smaller sports company that focused mostly on running shoes. All that was about to change.

The next year, they released the Air Jordan. “It was the first really hot, hype sneaker that people really needed to have,” says Yang-Yi Goh, Style Editor at GQ Magazine. This was partly because of Jordan’s popularity and the shoes’ colors. The Air Jordan was red and black, which was not common. “At the time, the NBA had a rule about only wearing white sneakers on the court, and your sneaker had to have a certain amount of white on the shoe to be considered respectable,” says Goh. The Air Jordan broke this rule, and the NBA fined Jordan $5,000 each time he stepped on a basketball court with the sneakers on — today, that’s the equivalent of almost $15,000 per game! But Nike paid Jordan’s fines in order to have him play on the court with the shoe. “It became like a real marketing point and a talking point about that shoe,” Goh explains.

The Birth of a Collector’s Item

The following year, Nike released a new Air Jordan that looked completely different. By releasing a new “model” each year, different shoes under the same Air Jordan name, Nike created the idea of a sneaker as a collectible. The Air Jordan helped to transform a sneaker as something more than just a wearable item. “Now we wait each year eagerly for what the next Air Jordan is going to look like,” Semmelhack says. 

There are a number of other reasons that have contributed to Air Jordan's sustained popularity over the years. “They were always boundary-pushing, technology-wise,” Goh says. The Air Jordan “looks like no other basketball shoe, time and time again.” On top of that, Goh says, sneakerheads love the Jordans because “each of them comes baked in with their own backstories.” These stories include “what was happening in Jordan's career when he was wearing them,” as well as their famous designers, such as Tinker Hatfield who made the different models of shoes. The most expensive shoe purchase of all time featured the Air Jordan, but not a single matching pair! In 2024, one sneaker from each of Michael Jordan’s six NBA championship winning games was sold as a collection for over eight million dollars!

The Most Important Sneaker of All Time

Over time, sneakers have become so much more than something people wear to get around. Today, sneaker collectors can choose from limited edition collaborations (known popularly as “collabs,”) with famous artists, fashion designers, and celebrities. For example, the high end fashion label Dior and the rapper Travis Scott have both worked on collaborations with the Air Jordan brand. Sneakers can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. People will wait in line overnight to buy new sneakers. StockX is an online marketplace that treats sneakers like stocks with prices that rise and fall. 

We can credit almost all of this to the Air Jordan, a shoe that changed the way we think about sneakers. In his article for GQ, titled “​​The 50 Greatest Sneaker Collaborations in Nike History,” Goh writes, “The Air Jordan 1 isn’t merely the most important sneaker in Nike’s history — it’s the most important sneaker, period.”