Dior X Air Jordan 1 Low

Two ways to wear the Low. First, the deliberate downplay: straight-leg raw denim with a plain white tee and an unstructured navy blazer, letting the grey panels do the work and the Oblique Swoosh reveal itself only when someone looks twice. Second, tailored: cropped black trousers with a break above the ankle and a fine-gauge knit, which is how the low profile is supposed to sit against clothing rather than under it. Wear these dry, and treat the white leather as leather, not as canvas: wipe after every wear, condition occasionally, keep them out of monsoon streets. Store with shoe trees, and keep the numbered lining intact if you ever intend to resell.

This is the object that ended the argument about whether luxury houses could operate credibly in sneakers. It descends from a longer pattern at Dior: John Galliano's Spring-Summer 2000 show absorbed hip-hop's influence into a couture house and launched the Saddle bag into 2000s celebrity culture, and Jones's decade did the same thing with sportswear. Under Jones the house also worked with KAWS, Shawn Stussy, Hajime Sorayama, Daniel Arsham, Raymond Pettibon, Sacai and 1017 ALYX 9SM. The Air Dior is the one that mattered outside fashion, and it reset resale expectations for every luxury sneaker that followed it.

Made in Italy in white and Dior Gray leather, the Low takes the Jordan 1 pattern and rebuilds it to Dior's leather standards rather than a sneaker factory's. The signal detail is the Swoosh, printed in the Oblique monogram, which Dior borrowed directly from its own B23 sneaker, the high-top that carries Oblique canvas. There is an Air Dior Wings logo in place of the standard Jordan Wings mark, and every pair carries an individually numbered ankle lining. On the low cut those details read faster because there is less upper to distribute them across, which is why the Low is often the more legible of the two in person.