Off-White x Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG 'Chicago'
Colorway: White/Black-Varsity Red-Black · Style code: AA3834-101 · Release date: November 20, 2017 · Price: $2809 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Virgil Abloh Archive x Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG 'Alaska' (AA3834-100) · Jordan Lift Off Sneakers (AR4430-101) · Jordan Zion 3 Sanctuary Sneakers in Offin White/Off White/Pink Foam (DV3869-103) · OFF x Jordan Hoodie (DM0059-054) · Jordan Why Not 0.2 Sneakers in Offin White/Off White/Platinum Tint (AO6218-101)
The Ten, released in 2017, took ten Nike models and edited each of them as lightly as Abloh could manage. He put the figure at roughly three per cent, on the reasoning that a shoe people already recognise is transformed by being interrupted rather than redrawn.
The Air Jordan 1 was the hardest test of that, because it is the most recognised shoe in the group. Peter Moore designed it in 1985; its red, white and black version is the one the NBA fined Michael Jordan for wearing, and it has been reissued in that exact combination for four decades. Abloh left the colours alone.
What he changed was the shoe's finish. The swoosh is tacked on with coarse blue stitching that reads as unfinished. AIR is printed onto the midsole in plain type, labelling what is already there. A plastic zip tie hangs from the collar. Even the packaging is inverted: the box turned inside out so the printed side faces in.
It released in November 2017 at $190, a normal price for a shoe that was never going to be sold normally.