{"id":78488,"date":"2025-10-16T13:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78488\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T13:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T13:54:11","slug":"new-air-jordan-book-charts-the-40-year-impact-of-michael-and-his-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/78488\/","title":{"rendered":"New Air Jordan Book Charts the 40-Year Impact of Michael and His Shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBefore the 2025 event even started, Jordan Brand<\/a> was already laying down the foundation for a year full of initiatives celebrating the Air Jordan<\/a> 1\u2019s 40th anniversary. The \u201c40\u00a0Years of Greatness\u201d campaign first started running on Christmas Day, and the legacy of the sneaker has been highlighted consistently since through moments including the release of the most faithful Air Jordan 1<\/a> recreation yet, a drone show as tribute to the time MJ shattered a backboard<\/a> in Italy and an \u201cUnbannable\u201d campaign connecting Jalen Hurts<\/a>\u2018 fine from the NFL to those threatened against Jordan by the NBA in his rookie season.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile those acts of storytelling have been specific, a new book called \u201cAir Jordan<\/a>\u201d is much more ambitious in its scope. Published by Assouline and written by Adam Bradley, the 359-page tome is split into six sections to represent Jordan\u2019s six NBA titles and ease digestion for the many avenues that the man and his shoe have influenced: \u201cDesign,\u201d \u201cBusiness,\u201d \u201cPop Culture,\u201d \u201cStyle,\u201d \u201cAthletics\u201d and \u201cImpact\u201d \u2014 the latter of which speaks to leadership, charitable initiatives and advocacy. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a cultural history of the last 40 years, told through the lens of one individual and his brand, and that\u2019s daunting,\u201d Bradley told Footwear News on a call earlier this week. \u201cNo matter how many Ph.D.s one might have, no matter what one studies and what you can bring to bear, trying to wrap your arms around 40 years is an intimidating thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Air<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAn original Air Jordan 11 campaign image featured in \u201cAir Jordan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBringing a Ph.D. in English from Harvard and renown for his literary analysis of hip-hop, Bradley had roughly six months to tackle this daunting task. By the time he was brought in, Assouline and Nike had already begun compiling and photographing some of the numerous mementos from the life and career of Jordan that serve as the backbone of the book, many of which have never been seen.<\/p>\n

\n\tA perfect attendance certificate from first grade, all six NBA championship rings, a shoe box with used baseball gloves are among the many totems to page through along with other images that include an unpublished shot from Annie Leibovitz as the cover, design sketches, sources of inspiration and photos of Jordan-clad celebrities as diverse as Larry David, Nas, David Schwimmer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Keith Haring and A$AP Rocky.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat I always did was try to tether myself to the wonderful images that the team gathered at Assouline, Nike and a lot of other partners,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cThe fact that this is, by some measure, a coffee table book that is photo-forward allowed me as a writer to go places that if I just sat down to write 120,000 words about Michael Jordan<\/a> and the brand that I could never have achieved. These are the sorts of things that became a spur to the imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe perfect attendance certificate is one of Bradley\u2019s favorite examples, the sort of character detail that helps explain Jordan\u2019s iconic \u201cFlu Game\u201d performance in the 1997 NBA Finals. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Air<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAll six of Michael Jordan<\/a>\u2019s NBA championship rings. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHENRY LEUTWYLER<\/p>\n

\n\tBradley estimates he interviewed 18 people, including Jordan Brand<\/a> president Sarah Mensah and J Balvin, and he also pored over a great deal of archival texts for both quotes and information. Jordan himself wrote a forward, which is followed by essays for the introduction and each section.<\/p>\n

\n\tJust as he\u2019s done with hip-hop prior, Bradley treats the empire of sneakers with a literary and scholastic sense that few have prior. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wrote the book with the same kind of inspiration that I think the designers and MJ himself brought to each of his sneaker, because behind it was, \u2018We are going to engineer and design something that is better than it needs to be,’\u201d he said. \u201cI know in a book like this words aren\u2019t necessarily the focus, nonetheless, I felt that if we could make the words better than they needed to be, it would make the book something people would covet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo make \u201cAir Jordan\u201d even more covetable, there are two editions. The baseline \u201cClassic\u201d edition is priced at $123, and the $2,300 \u201cUltimate\u201d edition is limited to just 1,000 hand-numbered copies with details including an ornamented clamshell inspired by the laser graphic from the Air Jordan 20. <\/p>\n

\n\tBoth versions of the book are out on Thursday through Assouline\u2019s website and select retailers.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Air<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAn original Air Jordan 7 campaign image. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the 2025 event even started, Jordan Brand was already laying down the foundation for a year full…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[55116,412,146,85,46,55117,7224],"class_list":{"0":"post-78488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-air-jordan","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-jordan-brand","14":"tag-michael-jordan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}