Air Jordan Jordan 1 Mid Chicago Toe

Red toe, white body, so keep the rest simple. First: mid blue straight jeans, a white tee, a red detail somewhere small like a cap or a watch strap, nothing else red. Second: black trousers with a slight taper and a black crewneck, letting the shoe be the only colour in the outfit. Occasion is daytime, weekend, gigs. Fit is true to size with a narrow midfoot. Care is mostly about the white: protector spray before first wear, a soft brush and mild soap on the panels, a magic sponge only on the midsole, and stuffing the toe box between wears so the red leather creases less sharply.

The red and white arrangement carries the weight of the Banned advertising, which was built on the NBA's uniform rule requiring shoes to be at least 51 percent white and Nike's willingness to pay the 5,000 dollar per game fine rather than change the design. That campaign taught the sneaker market that transgression sells, and it is why this palette still reads as a statement rather than as team kit. Spike Lee, directing and playing Mars Blackmon opposite Jordan, made the shoe a screen character, and rappers including 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube and Jay-Z kept it in the culture's vocabulary.

Leather across the upper with the classic 1 panel map: wing tip toe with perforations, separate eyestay, stitched Swoosh and a padded Mid collar sitting just under the ankle bone. Splitting red to the toe box means the part of the shoe that creases hardest is also the part carrying the strongest colour, so expect the flex lines to show there first. The white quarter panels are the maintenance job. A rubber cupsole with a forefoot pivot circle takes the ground contact. The Mid collar has more foam than an OG High, which makes it the easier of the two to wear all day out of the box.