You don’t need to have read to know the impact Nike trainers have had on popular culture over the past five decades. The groundbreaking collaboration with Michael Jordan in 1985 even inspired the film starring Matt Damon, Viola Davis and Ben Affleck, telling the story of one of the most significant trainers in history, the Air Jordans. You can trace the brand’s distinctive swoosh logo through endless moments in recent history, from ’s unboxing of a pair of red and white Cortez to Whitney Houston wearing Cortez for her Super Bowl halftime performance in 1991 to Rachel Green wearing a pair of Air Max sneakers in the “The One with the Football” Thanksgiving episode of .
A personal favourite is the “no games, just sports” fictional advert in . A pair of Dior X Air Jordan 1s even made their way into the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden in 2021. We could write an entire thesis about the cultural impact of Nike trainers, which have managed to stay relevant ever since the first pair was launched in 1972.
The Air Jordan 1s have a long list of celebrity fans, from Rihanna to Jennifer Lopez who pretty much has them permanently attached to her feet. This year there has been a resurgence of retro styles from the ’70s, as Adidas’s SL72s are poised to topple the Samba as the brand’s cult shoe of 2024. The Nike Cortez, which launched at the Munich Olympics in 1972, is experiencing a renaissance, as Lyst reports that searches for this model have been up 51 per cent o.