The Air Jordan 1 Mid ‘Denim’ References a Classic Jeans Colab

With over 35 years of sneaker history to look back on, the Air Jordan 1 has plenty of reference material to work with from both in-house and external sources. This upcoming release – while not officially confirmed by Jordan Brand (yet) – looks back to the Levi’s x Air Jordan 1 Mid ‘23/501’ pack from 2008 with more than a few visual cues.

By the late 2000s, the AJ1 was definitely regarded as a casual sneaker, so it opened up more material options for the former basketball shoe. The aforementioned Levi’s collaboration added elephant print denim to the toe box, side panels, ankle collar, and tongue between red leather panels. In 2021, this treatment returns to the same model in a near-identical colourway, albeit with some key changes to differentiate this year’s version from the 2008 release.

The new release swaps leather for suede, while the denim drops the elephant print and instead ramps up the acid wash. Twill tongues are swapped for a more OG nylon surface, and the somewhat superfluous hexagonal metal eyelets of the Levi’s colab are left to the older release. Gold outsole accents and matching Swooshes maintain a familiar opulence.

Check out the above on-foot pics via yankeekicks ahead of official release news.