Designed by Peter Moore and part of the Air Jordan 1 line. This release has a patent leather upper in Black/Varsity Red/White. Bred Toe splits the upper three ways, black, white and red, with red on the toe rather than the Swoosh, and this Mid renders it in patent. Patent leather has a specific place in Jordan history: it entered the line on the Air Jordan 11, where it brought a formal wear material onto a basketball court and gave that model its reputation as the Jordan people wear with suits. Bringing that surface back to the 1, the shoe Peter Moore and Bruce Kilgore drew in 1984, collides the line's two most recognisable ideas. The colour arrangement is the archive; the shine is the 11's contribution.
Patent likes evening. Black trousers with a clean break, a black knit and a dark overcoat treats the shine as a formal detail rather than a sneaker flourish. In daylight, mid wash denim and a plain white tee is enough, since the shoe already has surface interest. Do not add other glossy pieces. The Mid cut works under a single cuff and looks wrong under a stacked hem, which hides the toe block that gives the shoe its name. Keep them away from grit, which is what scratches patent, and wipe after every wear; the material looks worse dusty than it does dirty.
Two threads meet in this shoe. The black and red half of the palette carries the Banned story, in which the NBA required at least 51 percent white on court shoes with a 5,000 dollar per game fine, the shoe cited was the Air Ship prototype, and Nike paid rather than redesigned. The patent half carries the 11's argument that basketball footwear could hold formal materials. Both threads run into the same culture, where 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Ice Cube and Jay-Z referenced Jordan in music and the shoe became the foundation of mass sneaker collecting.
Patent behaves nothing like standard leather. It is a coated surface, so it repels light rain and wipes clean easily, but it scuffs into visible white lines and creases sharply rather than softening, and a deep crease in patent does not relax out. On a Mid, the collar sits below the ankle bone and the shoe still uses the panelled build, separate toe cap, eyestay, quarter and Swoosh, over a flat rubber cupsole with no air window, since Nike Air entered the line at the Air Jordan 2. Clean with a damp microfibre cloth only, skip brushes entirely, and store with a shoe tree so the vamp does not fold hard.
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