This inevitably only created a rebellious mystique around it – it is the shoe's ability to take colour that might also have helped in its long-lasting popularity. The shoe was initially banned by the NBA because of its red-and-black colour scheme at a time when the organisation stipulated that players' footwear had to be predominantly white. 'I think that was the moment that, 'ok, these are a status symbol,'' he says. It was, says DeLeon, unprecedented for any brand to tap into the cultural zeitgeist like that. In the ads, he questions Jordan on what makes him the best player in the universe, and repeatedly says, 'it's gotta be the shoes!' Teaming up with Lee on the adverts was a savvy move. In 1989, adverts were released, 'very Spike Lee style', as DeLeon puts it, in which Lee appears as Mars Blackmon, his character from his film She's Gotta Have It. 'All this time has passed, and really no one has reached the level that he was able to reach in his career.'Ī lot of the marketing around the shoes was more like that of a car promotion, says DeLeon, who's not sure of the exact number of pairs he owns – he acquired five or six in the past month, and has somewhere in the 100s in total. 'Jordan's cultural cachet continues to increase even beyond his playing years,' says Drew Haines, merchandising director of sneakers and collectibles at StockX, the online marketplace and resale site for streetwear and sneakers. Jordan's athletic prowess is clearly a major factor in the shoe's enduring reputation. It was the first of 35 different Air Jordan designs that have been released in the years since. Shoe designer and Nike legend Peter C Moore was brought in, reportedly sketching the design on the back of a napkin, and the first Air Jordan was born. Still, they had to fight to convince him to sign with them, as Jordan himself was keen to sign with Adidas and at the time Nike was a struggling brand. At the time that Nike approached Jordan, in 1984, he was still a rookie playing at the University of Carolina. So what is it about the Air Jordan that makes it so special? The backstory alone, the subject of a new film, Air, directed by and starring Ben Affleck alongside Matt Damon and Viola Davis, was unprecedented. 'They definitely look worn but they are in really good condition considering how old they are.' 'It's something that will appeal to sneakerheads, and will also appeal to game-worn collectors,' says Wachter, meaning that they show signs of having graced Jordan's feet on court. That the Jordan 13s are expected to eclipse this record amount speaks not only to their rarity but also to the incredible, lasting legacy of arguably the most iconic sneaker design ever created. The current auction record for a pair of trainers at auction, according to Sotheby's, is $1.472m in 2021, also for a pair worn by Jordan.

'The pair that we have is actually the only MeiGray photo-matched pair (MeiGray is the authenticator for the NBA) from any of the NBA finals that have ever appeared at auction.' 'At the time the Bulls were cognisant that they were going to be disbanded as a team, they were aware that this was their last chance at winning an NBA championship together,' Brahm Wachter, Sotheby's head of streetwear and modern collectables, tells BBC Culture. Next week, a pair of Nike Air Jordan 13s worn by Michael Jordan in the second game of the NBA finals in 1998, a season colloquially known as 'the last dance', are to be auctioned by Sotheby's and are the most valuable sneakers to ever appear on the market. For a pair of second-hand trainers to be expected to sell for somewhere in the region of $2 million to $4 million, they must be pretty special.

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