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The Maniacal Re-Making of the Most Accurate Air Jordan 1 Retro Ever

Ahead of the 40th anniversary launch of the Air Jordan 1, Boardroom dives into the multi-year effort to re-create the iconic sneaker.

The impact and influence of the Air Jordan 1 design are almost impossible to properly assign. A singular shoe that has generated billions of dollars in revenue for an industry-defining individual athlete’s own sub-brand, and even all these years later, the sneaker stands the test of time. 

It’s simply one of the most iconic creations we’ve ever seen in footwear. An artifact long ago transcending just shoes and entering the esteemed tiers of design helmed by heralded products like an Eames chair, a Rolex watch, or a Porsche 911. 

“If you look at modern sneaker culture, and everything from athlete contracts to the resell market to the success of Nike and Jordan as brands — it all centers on this shoe,” says Jason Grisby at Jordan Brand. “The Air Jordan 1 is the real heart, soul, and legacy of this brand.”

This year, the Air Jordan 1 turns 40

The 2025 edition of the Air Jordan 1. (Photo by Nick DePaula)

It was in August of 2021 when Grisby, a longtime product director of major icon categories around the industry, was hired at Jordan Brand. His job was uniquely specific to start — he would only work on the Air Jordan 1 as Product Director. Yes, the shoe had become so successful that it was established as its own silo within the company. 

The task was also unique for an industry that typically works on a 12 to 24-month product timeline. He and a team of 10 would have more than three years to map out a strategy and runway to celebrate the upcoming 40th anniversary of the Air Jordan 1 in 2025. 

“We wanted to get to the roots, and re-tell the story,” adds Grisby. “But contextualize it for today’s world.”

The History


The history cemented in the storytelling of Michael Jordan’s first signature shoe is endless. Initially “banned” by the NBA in 1985 for its clashing uniformity with Bulls teammates, the black and red colorway alone was groundbreaking upon its initial release. The nuances of the facts have been up for debate for 40 years ever since. 

As many now know, it was a black and red Air Ship sample that Michael first wore on October 18, 1984, during an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks. Only after Jordan wore the Air Jordan 1 during the Dunk Contest did Nike receive a memo from the league in late February 1985, stating that “certain red and black basketball shoes” violated the league’s color rules and could not be worn in games. His teammates wore white shoes, so Michael needed to wear white shoes.

The notion that Nike paid a $5,000 fine for each game in which Jordan wore the sneakers has lived on as a grand urban legend. Nike crafted an entire “Banned” marketing campaign around that distinction, placing black bars over his shoes in the original TV ad. Variations of the campaign have lived on ever since, even incorporating Jordan’s United Center statue just last week.

The 1985 Dunk Contest. (Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)

(The truth is he never actually played an official regular season game in the black and red pair, by all measures of research — meaning there was no fine to pay.) 

Regardless, the shoe was an instant breakthrough, smashing projections and generating $126 million in sales during Nike’s sixth year selling basketball shoes. The $65 retail shoe was first estimated to tally $3 million in sales.

“Air Jordan surprised us and made me very happy financially,” Michael told The Chicago Tribune after his rookie season for its May 15, 1985 print edition. “Hopefully it will continue.”

The shoe would go on to be worn by people of all backgrounds all over the world.

“We can see from decade to decade, different subcultures and different groups across hip hop, basketball, to skate to rock culture that adopted the shoe,” said Grisby. “We talked about it more as an icon, an heirloom, and an art piece rather than just a sneaker because that almost diminishes the cultural impact of the shoe. That was the lightbulb switching on when we looked at this as an asset class that can last generation to generation.”

With that three-year lead time in store, Grisby and the team began outlining the roadmap for re-creating the Air Jordan 1 in its truest original form to date. The black and red colorway was the one to get exactly right and launch first. It will release on Feb. 14, 2025, for $250.

“Instead of adjusting the pre-existing version of the Retro ’85,” begins Grisby. “We just said, ‘We need to rebuild this from the ground up.’”

Jordan during his rookie season. (Focus on Sport via Getty Images)

The Input


One of the most important steps in the process early on was incorporating the man himself. As his Jordan Brand touts annual revenues north of $7 Billion all these years later, Michael still involves himself in the planning, the strategy, and the direction of the brand’s biggest moments and pinnacle products, just as he did during his playing career. 

Grisby and the team had a full hour on the calendar with MJ on the first floor of The Michael Jordan Building, diving into both the history of the shoe and the design strategy of the forthcoming 2025 edition. 

“You would think that a shoe this old, may just be a distant memory to him,” Grisby says now. “But he asked questions about everything and the various details of the shoe that most people don’t even know about. He championed the micro-details that we were getting after.”

“All of that stuff counts,” Jordan firmly directed. 

An original 1985 pair of the Air Jordan. (Photo courtesy Jordan Brand)

As they dug deep into the opening season of his career with the Chicago Bulls, Jordan began to ask the team specifically about how this eventual retro edition would be packaged within the shoe box. 

“Will they be laced?” 

Michael’s preference was that they not be, to honor his locker room routine before each and every night that he suited up in the Air Jordan 1, and all of his sneakers, throughout his career.

Michael lacing up his Air Jordans during his final Bulls season, a pre-game ritual throughout his career. (Photo courtesy of ESPN / The Last Dance)

“He told us, ‘This was how I started my ritual,’ and he motioned how he would measure out the laces,” Grisby recalls. “That ritual is what got him into game mode. He associated game mode with the shoe itself.”

As Grisby walked him through the lengthy strategy deck spanning 50 pages that outlined the 2025 plan, Jordan “got a kick out of the comparison slide” when he realized just how many editions of the sneaker have been released. 

“He was really excited that we got the roll out correctly with the depth of the colors too,” said Grisby.

Jordan spoke to each of the original colorways he wore, whether on or off court, and mentioned the only pair he didn’t have at the time was the white and “metallic black” model. 

The group continued to discuss everything from the toe shape to the collar padding to the break-in time of the leather used, as well as the bigger-picture impact the sneaker has had not just on the Air Jordan line and not just on the Nike brand but on the industry as a whole. 

The Archives


By June 2023, the brand had spent months coordinating a meeting of the minds, bringing together a collective of nearly every living person who initially worked on the first Air Jordan model. Notably absent was the shoe’s celebrated original designer, Peter Moore, who passed in the spring of 2022 after a career of industry-defining design work and mentorship of the next generation. 

Within the halls of Nike’s secret undisclosed off-campus location where it preserves its physical history of sneakers, apparel, posters, sketches and related materials all in one place, an entire room was set up to immerse the team in the atmosphere of forty years ago. 

Now dubbed DNA, short for the Department of Nike Archives, images from the initial Air Jordan 1 era and design blueprints dated in 1984 were tacked along light brown wall boards, while rolling rack shelves showcased original pairs from 1985. Several team members on hand also brought in their own pairs. 

Within minutes of speaking with the original team members, Grisby realized he and everyone else in the modern era had a key detail wrong, all along. 

“The lightbulb was that they all call it Air Jordan, to this day,” he says with a smile. “It’s actually not called the Air Jordan 1. The proper name is Air Jordan. You don’t say Star Wars 1 — it’s just Star Wars.”

While the brand became known for its usage of roman numerals over the years for each annual game shoe thereafter, the original shoe box indeed simply says: Air Jordan.

The 2025 shoe box. (Photo by Nick DePaula)

Robert Williams, Nike’s official “Senior Curator” of sneaker culture at its DNA space and a frequent fixture highlighting historical content on the SNKRS app and on Instagram, had helped to host the setting, situating additional artifacts from eras past on hand. 

As he started discussing his favorite elements of wearing the shoe over the years, Grisby stopped him. 

“You’ve never worn an Air Jordan 1,” he said politely. “Every version that you’ve had, has never been the original.” 

The reality is the brand has released more than a dozen variations of the sneaker in a high-cut black and red colorway in the decades since, some in satin, knit, or even patent leather looks. Grisby calls them “chapters” — but none have entirely captured the true stance, silhouette, shape, and subtleties of the 1985 edition. 

“From the moment he said that,” sighed Williams. “That was the whole pitch that I heard in my head — ‘I’ve never had an original.’ That’s what has drove me to wanting this 2025 edition so much.” 

As the group on hand that day traded stories, memories, and recollections of the “radical process” of creating the first Air Jordan in just a matter of months for Michael’s rookie season, an even bigger discovery quickly stood out. The original shoe was manufactured across five different factories, making for disparities and slight differences from pair to pair. 

“It’s a bit of a wild card,” Brad Johnson, the original product line manager, told the group. 

“We were clear that there were variations in all of the originals,” Grisby says now. 

With that in mind, and still nearly two years left on the clock towards the re-creation ahead of its 40th anniversary, the collective came to a consensus, confirming the direction ahead: 

‘How can we make this as truest to the original as possible?’

A dissected 1985 Air Jordan. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Brand)

The Factory


To truly get this re-creation process and every last “micro-detail” delicately dialed in, the Beaverton, Oregon-based team went to Nike’s factory in China. They spent the entire month of January 2024 toiling away in the sample room, tweaking the most minor revisions and updates along the way. 

Original pairs were cut up, dissecting parts and panels down to a science. CT scanning X-ray machines from the medical industry helped to reverse engineer material textures and foam thicknesses. Engineers, designers, and developers on-hand poured over stitches millimeter by millimeter to create an updated process of weaving together the nylon “Nike Air” tongue patch as it was originally constructed. Recreating the exact printed hang tag and shoe box was the easy part.

“The stars on the outsole, we actually measured against an original pair of ’85s and got it down to the exact height and fractional unit of measurement,” Grisby says, as he begins to rattle off the detail delved into. “We traced the original collar lining typography and recreated that as accurate to the original as possible. You also have the synthetic Swoosh, versus the real leather on the upper. We reworked the Wings logo. The most maniacal detail is the hand-carved pattern that is replicated on the midsole.”

The “more sporadic” original hand-carved midsole texture. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Brand)

On every Retro edition of the Air Jordan 1 since 2001, the midsole texture is simply a computerized repeat print. The original texture was hand carved into a molding bar, a process that the 2025 pair now incorporates, resulting in a “more sporadic” pattern. 

The leather, with a smooth texture that is initially firm before being broken in, is also more accurate to the original now. The upcharged $250 price point speaks to the materials selected, the new “tooling” costs for the midsole, higher quality shoe box, and the years of effort from a dedicated team that went into the process. 

“We’re really interested to see what people think,” said Grisby. “There’s so many nuances to the shoe from height, materials, leather and hand feel. Everyone has a different perspective — it creates great discourse online. A High OG is going to feel different than a collaboration pair, and from these.” 

The leather swatch selected for the 2025 edition. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Brand)

While the “Banned” Air Jordan 1 released in 2016 objectively features a softer leather, the up-specced quality tier isn’t exact to the original, like this new 2025 edition. 

“The original intent was to create a true one-to-one to the original. It was a basketball shoe and it was made to endure a season of play,” said Grisby. “We used that as the driving force behind the leather.”

With the handful of original factories providing no exact one variation to follow, things like the more wavy midsole sloping, the more rounded toe shape from a top view, and the collar that veers just a bit outward are all shifts from recent Retro editions that get the shoe closer to 1985. 

“I spent years scouring everything I could possibly read,” added Grisby. “There was no stone unturned.”

A batch of sample and original pairs. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Brand)

The Nod of Approval


Jordan saw the final sample of the new 2025 Retro for the first time on October 22, 2024, four days after the 40th anniversary of the first time he played a game in the black and red Air Ship.

Grisby was sitting in Howard White’s expansive office, where framed photos and newspaper clippings from the decorated decades of White’s career are featured along the walls from floor to ceiling. Grisby excitedly showed “H” the final version of the shoe that he and the team had spent three years creating. 

“Has Mike seen these?” White asked. 

“I’m supposed to catch him later today,” replied Grisby, noting Jordan’s stacked schedule of meetings for his bi-annual visit to Beaverton.

White, in his trademark high pitched voice, wanted Michael to see the shoes that began their journey together, immediately. 

“He’s in the hallway right now — grab him.”

“I just looked at him,” laughs Grisby. “Like, ‘You want me to grab Michael Jordan?’

As he turned the corner of the hallway, there was Jordan, wearing a fresh pair of the Jordan 2/3 hybrid sneaker. 

“He kind of looked back at me, like, ‘You’re not supposed to do that,’” continued Grisby. “I said, ‘H wants you.’”

Right away, Jordan knew.

The “micro-details” they had discussed and stressed during their hour-long brainstorming session connected. And yes, the shoes were unlaced, with both black and red options included. (He wore red laces in the ’85 Dunk Contest.)

“He took the shoe, was looking them up and down, and just nodded his head in approval,” said Grisby. “He obviously has many, many things to tend to within Jordan Brand and in his life. Once he sees something and gives it the nod — now it’s, ‘Ok — go execute against it.’”

“Good job,” Jordan confirmed.

“He was transported to ’85,” continued Grisby. “If you think about the psychology of that year, it’s when he went from a national prospect known by some, to a pop culture icon. I imagine his relationship to that shoe is different than all the others, because it was unproven.”

The Lasting Legacy


As the sneaker turns forty, the longevity and success of the Air Jordan 1 only serves as a reminder of the foundational imprint the shoe has had on the industry at large and the Jordan Brand as a whole. 

It is one shoe for a company that will launch the Air Jordan 40 later this year, but of course, also so much more. As the series evolved from an annual model to the launch of Jordan Brand as a Nike Inc. subsidiary in 1997, all these years later, Jordan’s personal involvement has remained constant. 

“He is not some distant, uninvolved entity. He cares about every single detail,” said Grisby. “It’s a reflection of who he is as an athlete, and what you hear about him. He’s a perfectionist, he’s a competitor and he wants to win. He’s very savvy from a design perspective. He speaks about business, people and products in a way, that it makes sense why Jordans became JORDANS. It makes sense that he is both the athlete and the businessman that he became.”

An original 1985 pair of the “Chicago” Air Jordan 1. (Photo by Nick DePaula)

Throughout our lengthy conversation, Grisby references the final 2025 edition he’s holding a pair of, in comparison to the sneakers I’m wearing. The original pair of 1985 “Chicago” 1s on my feet have been wearable for the fifteen years I’ve owned them. While the collar has long cracked and chipped in parts, the essence of the shoe has lived on. 

“This is 40 years later, and there’s a reason they are still wearable,” Grisby points out as he holds up the newest edition. “Hopefully, people are wearing these 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years down the line also.”

It’s around that exact time that Robert Williams, from the DNA team, happens to walk by our table in The Michael Jordan Building. He cracks a smile when he sees my original pair and checks out the 2025 pair lying on the table once more. 

“There was an unrelenting task of perfection that Jason and his team achieved to get this done,” Williams said, as he looked over the final retail pair. “That speaks volumes.”

For all of the anticipation, all of the online chatter in recent years, and all of the expectation to deliver an Air Jordan as true to the 1985 edition as possible, it is the black and red pair that means most to the history of the brand.

Forty years later, there remains an impact that the first sneaker in the industry’s most iconic signature series still hopes to stand for, for decades to come. 

“It’s why we went so above and beyond,” beamed Grisby. “It’s the only product I’ve ever worked on where I had a three year lead on it. I knew the date could not move and could not change. Every single aspect of this shoe is intentional.”

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Nick DePaula

Nick DePaula covers the footwear industry and endorsement deals surrounding the sporting landscape, with an emphasis on athlete and executive interviews. The Sacramento, California, native has been based in Portland, Oregon, for the last decade, a main hub of sneaker company headquarters. He’ll often argue that How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is actually an underrated movie, largely because it’s the only time his Sacramento Kings have made the NBA Finals.

About The Author
Nick DePaula
Nick DePaula
Nick DePaula covers the footwear industry and endorsement deals surrounding the sporting landscape, with an emphasis on athlete and executive interviews. The Sacramento, California, native has been based in Portland, Oregon, for the last decade, a main hub of sneaker company headquarters. He’ll often argue that How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days is actually an underrated movie, largely because it’s the only time his Sacramento Kings have made the NBA Finals.