Air Jordan 1 Low SE Black And White Diamond

Two recipes. Sharp: black tailored trousers with a white tee and a black overshirt, the shoe finishing a monochrome column at the floor. Or textured: raw indigo denim, a grey marl crew and white socks, letting the diamond panelling be the only pattern in play. Black and white Lows go with everything, so the discipline is elsewhere in the outfit, not on your feet. Sizing is close to true, with a half up for a wide forefoot. Brush the patterned sections dry before any wet cleaning, clean white and black areas with separate cloths, and condition the black leather occasionally so the creases stay supple rather than cracking.

Jordan Brand now dresses whole institutions. Its college basketball programmes include North Carolina, where Jordan himself played, along with Cincinnati, and the brand has run across football and baseball rosters for years. That is a long way from a company that signed a rookie in 1984 because it was losing basketball to Converse and adidas and needed a face of its own. Black and white is the palette that travels through all of it, the version that works on any campus and in any city, and the one least likely to date. Every other colourway in the catalogue is measured against this one.

Black leather over white, with the diamond treatment worked into the panelling rather than printed flat across the upper, so the texture shows at close range while the colour split does all the work from a distance. Underfoot is the stitched rubber cupsole, flat and wide, the same platform this silhouette has always used. Black panels are the most forgiving finish the shoe offers, since scuffs and creasing read as wear rather than damage, while the white sections around them will show every mark you collect. Patterned panels trap dust in their recessed areas too, so a soft brush matters more here than a cloth.