When we look at our sports shoes, like the Nike Dunk, we don’t always realise the lineage it has, and that it comes from a long line of shoes produced by Nike that has an illustrious history from possibly one of the greatest fashion products around, the Air Jordan. Nike Air Jordan shoes have certainly been one of the most durable and best selling. For Nike, from the moment they announced Air Jordans for sale was the moment that their company would change forever. Up to this point, they had been associated as a company for joggers and runners, mostly middle aged white men who were overweight and needed to lose a few pounds by running. Suddenly, with the release of the Air Jordans, they were hip and cool, and associated with a multi-million dollar industry in basketball.
Originally, Nike Air Jordan shoes were banned by the NBA due to their color. The NBA had a rule that all basketball shoes had to be white. The Air Jordan, on the other hand came in a range of bright colors, thereby making them illegal in all NBA matches. Michael Jordan famously flouted this rule, racking up fines of $5000 per match. Nike were only to happy to pay these fines, as they were recouping their business many times over thanks to the prime advertising they were getting. They did extremely well out of it, and this was the beginning of the transformation for Nike, from being solely a company that was there to provide running shoes, to a company that we know today with a multi-billion dollar global presence. Currently in its eighteenth different design, Air Jordan shoes are certainly proving themselves extremely durable in this incredibly fickle industry.