It’s that time of year again. The Air Jordan 40 hits stores today, marking four decades of the signature line that birthed sneaker culture as we understand it today. The impact of Air Jordan simply can’t be overstated—the Nike sublabel’s shoes have revolutionized everything from performance technology to the resale economy to athlete marketing deals to global fashion trends. Forty years in, we’re all still chasing Mike.

The Jordan line has long been a hub of Nike’s technological innovation, and the 40 is no different. For the first time ever, the design team combined a full-length Nike ZoomX foam unit and a full-length Zoom Strobel board in the soles. What does that mean, exactly? A whole lot of bounce—but with enough stability to counter it. The traction pad features treads set at 40-degree angles (get it?) for additional grip and control.

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For the upper, the brand has gone with a high-grade leather and subtle accents like a suede strip along the toe box. Incorporated within the design are direct nods to classic Js past, including the 3, 5, 9, and 13. The last decade-plus of Jordans have featured tech-forward silhouettes, but this year’s installment is substantially lower-key and puts a greater emphasis on aesthetic for aesthetic’s sake.

How that aesthetic has gone over with sneakerheads is another story. Like many recent Air Jordans, the 40 has proven divisive, with some collectors loving the step in a new direction and others feeling it’s indicative of the storied line losing steam. With the Air Jordan 40 officially hitting stores tomorrow, GQ called up an all-star squad of esteemed sneaker enthusiasts to get their takes on the 40 and the state of Air Jordan.


Hanif Abdurraqib

Author, There’s Always This Year

“I don’t have many thoughts on the silhouette itself. It’s fine, largely nondescript with a handful of easter eggs from past versions of the shoe, and I think in a way that gets to the larger question of designing for the future when weighed against the past. Jordan retros pairs at a high rate, many of those pairs coming within the range of silhouettes that were actually on MJ’s feet when he was playing, and that means those models have a history, a lore, a legacy, and a cultural familiarity. And the real challenge of designing new signature Jordan releases in real time, I think, is that the name and the brand is still incredibly powerful, of course. But without the physical person and the legacy and lore of the player who made the shoe actually doing things in the shoe, it’s almost like you’re designing towards a series of memories and homages, and that can be a challenge.”


Jacques Slade

Sneaker content creator

Read the full article here

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