With the black and red Air Jordan shoes, Nike succeeded in a rarely seen brand building. The sports giant packaged basketball history in a shoe box. The auction house Sotheby’s expects a price of between 2 and 4 million dollars for the shoes that basketball star Michael Jordan wore in his final season in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls.
– It became bigger than anything else in this niche, they lived their own life. It is a cultural legacy in just the shoe, it’s more than sports equipment, says Per Norell in SVT’s Morgonstudion.
The history of the shoe phenomenon is depicted in the film Air, which premieres this week, directed by Ben Affleck and starring superstars such as Viola Davis, Matt Damon and Jason Bateman.
See more about why the shoes have become legendary in the clip above.