Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG "Lost & Found"

When one thinks of the birthplace of milestone sneakers, a trailblazer in all sense, we often meet at the intersection of Michael Jordan and 1985, where Chicago meets Beaverton. The truth lies somewhere in between. After teetering back and forth, Michael Jordan signed with Nike in 1984 for five years and $2.5 million, plus royalties (Five cents per net wholesale of every Air Jordan pair, and rumors say it included two Mercedes Benz cars, as MJ is a car nut) which was a ridiculous amount of money worth drooling over back then. After signing the lucrative deal before MJ even played one game, the microcosmos of Chicago was upside down when the wunderkind from Brooklyn, by way of North Carolina, did what everyone was expecting from him: Averaging 24.8 points in his first four games in October, then 26.2 in November, it looked like the Chicago Bulls, and the Swoosh made the right decision. Mainly because the two draft picks taken before Michael didn't get out of the gates as smoothly as the future GOAT himself.

It's no secret that the shoes he wore during his first weeks playing professional basketball were black and red Nike Air Ships, a model and colorway he got the famous "BANNED" letter from the NBA. Nike needed one month, or 10 NBA games, for Michael to receive his first Air Jordan 1 pair, defending Julius Erving, Philly's number 6, and scoring 16 points in a loss to the 76ers. While the game didn't go as expected, the shoe hit a SLAAAAM DUNK (Today, you probably would call it "Step back three over two defenders" or "From the logo")

The story of the Air Jordan 1 "Chicago" was born.

On that day, November 17th, 1984, Michael Jordan's first Air Jordan 1 was born. Dressed in a red, black, and white colorway, better known as "Chicago," the colorway followed MJ throughout his rookie season. While the season continued, Jordan was averaging shy of 30 points per game until the NBA All-Star Game, that's when Nike made it official and kicked off the Month of April in 1985 by releasing the long-awaited Air Jordan 1 "Chicago." Designed by then Nike's creative director Peter C. Moore, the Air Jordan 1 brought to life a lower-cut silhouette, compared to other current models, with exciting big Swoosh and the all-new Wings logo, a blend of Michael Jordan's in-game DNA and the Nike brand. Quickly sketched on a napkin by Moore, the Wings logo is, until today, one of the most recognized icons in the footwear world.

The Air Jordan 1 "Chicago" was accompanied by a line of colorways when it originally debuted, including the much-talked-about red and black "Banned" colorway, a rendition that MJ never wore in his first season except during the All-Star Game Dunk Contest. With the return of the classic colorway in the "Lost and Found" design, Jordan Brand travels back in time, paying homage to this era with a staple throwback and how an original 1985 Air Jordan 1 would look if found decades later in a dusty stock room. Packed in a box that reminisces the time when shoe boxes were lost in stock rooms, only to be found again years later, the Air Jordan 1 "Lost and Found" features all the signs of a 37-year old shoe: dried-out, slightly cracked collar, OG big Swoosh, yellowy midsole, and soft aged leather, OG Box and lid, making each pair with its subtle differences not look the same.

The Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG "Lost & Found" is releasing November 19th 2022 at sneakersnstuff.com

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