and if you are like me and think "wait, bred? like..." no, it's a portmanteau of black and red. bred. it's dumb, yes.
what makes this pair important is not exactly what it did, but what it didn't, and this story is perhaps the most famous one in sneaker (and to a degree, basketball) history. the year is 1984, the then rookie Michael Jordan signs a contract paying 2.5 million dollars in five years.
contrary to adidas and converse, nike offered jordan his own shoe, something also unheard of, specially for a rookie. the air jordan. this is an ungodly amount of money for a NBA rookie at the time, we would be making fun of nike to this day if it wasn't also the best bet they ever did. as the story goes, nike made revolutionary new basketball shoes, but nba BANNED the sneakers, asked for 5000 dollars every time Jordan wore them, but you could still buy them! and everyone did!
except 95% of that isn't true. except that everyone bought them.
here's the thing, the shoes weren't ready when the preseason started, so nike's solution was to make him wear a lookalike, the already existent Nike Airship, but in a crazy color: black and red. he wore those for the first time in October 9th, 1984, on a preseason game against the Milwaukee Bucks
the black and red shoes calls attention of the league, that had, at a time, a rule that said the shoes had to be 51% white, and those were maybe 15% white (the midsole).
between that and the next appearance of the Bred colorway (on different shoes), Jordan was already wearing the AJ1, but not in the Bred colorway, but the Chicago! and the Black Toe. both of those did not violate the 51% rule, on purpose.
then, 1985 Slam Dunk contest, on Feb 9th, which has no uniform rules, Jordan wears the AJ1 Bred, fully rocking the "bad boy" look, he has golden chains even!
the letter the nba sent is, reportedly, from february, but it specifically mentions the games on the preseason, so the letter was talking about the Airship. but what Nike does? they completely do an 180, they twist the story to say the NBA banned the shoes, releasing the infamous ad with black bars over the sneakers. master play of advertising (and a lie)
on april 1st, the air jordan 1 officially releases for the public, sold in the chicago, bred and black toe colorways (later followed up be the royal, shadow, and the metallic series). nike was hoping to sell $3 million worth of AJs for the first three years. instead they sold $125 to $150 million on the first year alone. moved 4 million shoes before the end of the year, reportedly 1.5 million just on the release
bred is also known as "banned", for a reason, and perhaps the funniest thing of all: jordan never wore those on a NBA game, at all. all the footage of him is with the airship or some non-nba game.
