Jordans Daily History Lesson: Air Jordan IV “Fire Red”

Releasing this weekend is the latest in a string of OG colorway Air Jordan IV’s planned for 2012. We’ve had the ‘White/Cement’ and the ‘Military’ already, with ‘Fire Red’ shown here set to show up before the ‘Bred’ closes out the set this November. How does the 2012 version differ from the original? How many times has it been released in the interim period? Walk with us down memory lane for a second as we give you a timeline on the Air Jordan IV ‘Fire Red’.

First up was of course the 1989 ‘Nike Air’ adorned release, arriving in an era before Nike really drew the line between differing shades of red as far as color designation, labeling this Air Jordan IV simply as white/black/fire red. Michael Jordan’s time in the sneaker came mostly during the 1989-90 season before the Air Jordan V debuted (hit our gallery for more vintage shots from that era). After that the colorway was put on a pretty long hiatus-not popping up in the set of 1999 retros but eventually revisited in 2006. That time around though they had been tweaked just a bit, losing the Nike Air on the back in place of a Jumpman hit and bearing the ‘Mars’ logo towards the heel, a small piece of homage to Spike Lee’s Mars Blackmon of early Air Jordan ad campaign fame. All that brings us up to this weekend (that is unless you count the ‘Laser’ of ’05 that dropped a futuristic spin on the uppers), with the Air Jordan IV ‘Fire Red’ available this Saturday, August 4th. And while it does remain true to the OG in that the Mars logo hit is wiped off, varsity red is actually the shade used to color the sneaks, making their moniker a bit dubious this time around. Click through our gallery to get a full view on this year’s pair and if the wait has become too much to bear go ahead and grab this Air Jordan IV right now from yellownsxt on eBay. Additional photos: Sneaker News

Air Jordan IV
White/Varsity Red-Black
308497-110
08/04/12
$160