Any blog should surely start with a passion. It seems attempting to play football and watching it on numerous occasions every week while spending stupid amounts of money on trainers I may never wear would be a great place to start.
On Friday 17th of February at 9:11pm I walked to the side of Niketown Oxford street and joined the queue to purchase the above trainer, the Air Jordan Retro IV Black/Cement. I was second in line, I felt pleased. Perhaps slightly worried that it may be the Belgium gentleman to my left and myself the only ones bothered by this release. It was a relief then that when the doors opened at 11:55pm I was at the head of a 200 strong line of 'sneakerheads' all going crazy for this shoe.
And why not. A piece of sneaker history. Never make the mistake of calling this JUST a trainer. Originally released in 1989, it was the second design by architect turned designer Tinker Hatfield after his previous model the Jordan III. Michael Jordan wore this design on his way to a fifth-in-a-row ALL-STAR game and third-in-a-row League scoring title. However arguably Michael's stand out moment in the shoe would come in the opening round playoff game against Cleveland when he would hit the series clinching hanging jumper over Craig Ehlo to beat the buzzer, cue pandemonium and an iconic celebration that was actually missed when aired live.
After firmly establishing itself in basketball history the shoe then went onto do the same in popular culture with its appearance in the Spike Lee movie 'Do The Right Thing' where the character Buggin' Out, bugged out over the Celtic's fan who scuffed his brand new pair.
To finally drill home the idea of this being the must have sneaker Nike had already been using Spike Lee's Knicks loving Mars Blackmon to promote the Jordan III's and it turned the screw on the hugely memorable commercial campaigns when the Air Jordan IV was released. The Jordan/Mars Blackmon ads are considered Nike's most successful even rivalling Apple's '1984' ad campaign. All of this marketing was unheard of in 1989, and helped establish the Air Jordan IV as one of, if not the most influential sneaker of all time.
The shoe saw a re-release in 1999 with the Nike Air logo displayed on the heel as per the 1989 model and it hasn't been seen in this OG colour way since. 13 years is a long time to wait for a classic. The shoes mix of white leather, mesh and cement coloured plastic hasn't aged a day and even the replacing of the Nike Air logo with the Jumpman logo (Jordan brand try to not be labelled as Nike) may upset purists you can't deny this look is timeless.
As londoners and tourists passed the ever growing line on Friday evening many would stop and ask why. Is there a sale on? Quite the opposite. Many people uttered the words "For a trainer, are you mad?" Again quite the opposite. To me, mad is watching the omnibus of Eastenders. 3 hours of mental and physical torture. Standing in line for under three hours for a huge slice of sneaker/basketball/pop-culture history was a pleasure not a burden.
This is the first of many camp-outs this year, every Jordan holds a story and i'll be there to tell it.
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