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- Upper
- Leather
- Gender
- Unisex
- Released
- 2018
Air Jordan 4 Tattoo
Air Jordan 4 Tattoo
- Upper
- Leather
- Gender
- Unisex
- Released
- 2018
DELIVERY AND AUTHENTICATION
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Culture Note™
Designed by Tinker Hatfield and released on 29 December 2018 as part of the Air Jordan 4 line. This release has a leather upper in Black/Fire Red/Black/White. A tattoo themed Air Jordan 4 is the line admitting what it has been for decades: a surface people mark. The 4 comes from Tinker Hatfield's run, which began at the third model and turned the series into a design language with its own vocabulary of prints, textures and hardware, and it has since become one of the two or three silhouettes that artists and designers reach for first. Ink drawn graphics on a basketball shoe make explicit the relationship the brand already had with body art, music and street culture, a relationship that began when the shoes started appearing in hip hop verses rather than in sports coverage.
Illustrated shoes need silence above them. Recipe one: plain black trousers, a solid white or black tee, no other graphic anywhere, so the artwork stays readable. Recipe two: dark denim, a plain hoodie, a black jacket, hem cuffed above the collar so the print is not cut in half. Avoid printed shirts and patterned socks entirely. The 4 is bulky and suits width in the leg. Best on dry days and in good light, where the linework is actually visible. Clean printed panels with a barely damp cloth and no pressure, never brush over ink, and keep them away from solvents and direct heat.
The shoes entered culture through the collision of basketball and hip hop, with 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube and Jay-Z referencing Jordan and his sneakers in music long before any formal partnership existed, and the brand later formalised that relationship with artist collaborators including Drake, Billie Eilish, J Balvin, Eminem and Nicki Minaj. On the design side, KAWS, Off-White under Virgil Abloh, Comme des Garcons, Supreme and Dior have all treated Jordan silhouettes as canvases. A tattoo motif is the brand drawing on itself in that same tradition, using the shoe as skin rather than as equipment.
Graphic treatments on the 4 have to negotiate a busy silhouette, since the model already carries exposed support elements, worked panels and hardware around the lacing before any artwork is added. That means the print usually lives on the largest uninterrupted surfaces and reads in fragments as the shoe flexes. Nike Air cushioning, in the line since the second model, is the underfoot idea. Printed and illustrated areas are the vulnerable part of any graphic release: abrasion lifts ink at flex points faster than it damages leather. Jordan Brand publishes no per colourway material sheet, so check the print application and panel finish in hand.
- Upper
- Leather
- Gender
- Unisex
- Released
- 2018
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