Nike has unveiled the Air Jordan XX9 shoes on Thursday.
They'll cost $225.
“The Air Jordan should be, and has been in the past, the pinnacle basketball shoe in the marketplace,” says Larry Miller, Jordan Brand president. “Our focus now is on making sure that is the case moving forward.”
“They’re looking to see how they broaden their base away from retro,” said Matt Powell, analyst at SportsOneSource, reported USAToday. “The recent releases haven’t been doing commercial numbers. They’ve sold out OK, but when you stack them up against the better retro styles, the numbers are quite small.”
“The ultimate goal of these shoes was to fit like a glove and feel like you’re wearing nothing at all,” said one of the designers in the introduction video.
The XX9 introduces a bridge that links the heel and the forefront.
“The idea here is the structure,” says Rob Bruce, Nike’s global innovation design director. “We’re not adding multiple layers — we’ve weaving them. … It’s super-integrated, very, very reductive and it’s ballistic as hell. It was challenging to engineer, but much easier for the factory to make.
“The precision has gone up, the efficiency has gone up and what you’re going to end up with is a higher level of craftsmanship.”
The show is hailed by the designers as super lightweight and “tailored for flight.”
