Jordan Brand’s Blog Explains How Tinker Hatfield And Michael Jordan Created Air Jordan 3

The release of Air Jordan 3 “True Blue” this Saturday marks a return to the shoe’s original 1988 form, a design that Tinker Hatfield and Michael Jordan built together in the first immersive designer-athlete partnership. As the Air.Jordan blog explains in a new piece, that relationship not only built the 3, it set the very foundation for the Air Jordan line and opened the door for Jordan Brand to become its own entity in 1997.

Hatfield transferred his background as an architect to designing sneakers, a process he says necessarily should include the people who will inhabit the end product. In the case of Michael Jordan, that meant connecting Jordan’s personal fashion sense with his performance demands, which included a request to wear a brand new broken-in pair of shoes every game.

“[MJ] told me straight away that he wanted to be able to wear a new pair of shoes for every basketball game,” Hatfield said. “He wanted a broken-in, soft, comfortable, out-of-the-box experience.”

Air Jordan 3 captured Jordan’s iconoclastic talent, presenting fans with a high-performance shoe as versatile and cool as Jordan himself.

Air Jordan 3 “True Blue releases this Saturday, November 25th for $220 (Nike.com). Read the full blog post now at Air.Jordan.com.