Air Jordan 29 'Year of the Goat'
Colorway: Water Project/Blue Force/White/Black · Style code: 727134-407 · Release date: February 18, 2015 · Price: $239 · Availability: Available now
Jordan Brand's answer to knit uppers was not knit. The XX9, out in September 2014 and designed by Tinker Hatfield, used weaving instead: a single performance textile in which stiff and flexible zones are built in during construction rather than added afterwards as panels or overlays. No performance basketball shoe had been made that way before, and the surface reads more like painted canvas than like a sneaker.
Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard were the first to play in it. Underneath, FlightPlate carried over from the 28, seating a Pebax plate directly above the Zoom Air so the bag loads against a rigid surface rather than sinking into foam.
This edition arrived on February 18, 2015, the eve of a lunar new year that ran from February 19 that year to February 7 the next. A woven upper is an unusually good canvas for the annual zodiac program, which by then had become a fixed part of the Jordan calendar. It listed at $225.