'Perfect' Footwear: The Jordan 1 TedX PDX White 2014 Release
The Air Jordan 1 is the sneaker that started it all, marking the beginning of the most iconic lineage of sneakers in history. In many ways, it's responsible for launching modern-day sneaker culture as a whole—and it almost didn't happen.
History of Air Jordan 1
As the story goes, the year was 1984, and Chicago Bulls' rookie Michael Jordan was a hot commodity for endorsement deals, with sneakers naturally being paramount.
Jordan had just come off a stellar college basketball season at the University of North Carolina. He wore Converse and was a personal fan of Adidas, so he took meetings with both companies, but they never reached a deal. It seems strange today, but at the time, Michael Jordan hated Nike—so much so that he refused to take a meeting with them.
He was persuaded by his mother, Deloris Jordan, to visit the Nike campus in Oregon and listen to their pitch. His plan was to go through the motions to appease his parents and agent but he ultimately left with a contract unlike any other.
Rather than walking in the shadows of established athletes like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird (which may have been the case had he signed elsewhere), Michael Jordan shone in the Nike limelight. He was paid more than any other athlete with a sneaker endorsement at the time. Nike made him the face of its growing presence in basketball, and gave him his own sneaker line—called Air Jordan.
Jordan 1 TedX PDX White 2014
The Jordan 1 TedX PDX Whites were a pair of Jordan 1s created in collaboration with the TEDxPortland event that took place in 2014. To collaborate with the "Perfect" theme, the Jordan Brand selected a silhouette that many consider to be perfect itself. The special release was limited to a small run of only 230 pairs and was on display at the TEDxPortland art exhibition and charity auction. Twenty-three of those pairs were given away at the TEDxPDX event on April 12th, 2014, as a nod to Michael Jordan's iconic jersey number. The shoe features an almost entirely white upper with a red Jordan Wings logo on the ankle and Nike Air logo on the tongue. The upper sits atop a transparent blue sole that reads "Perfect" in red lettering along the tread.