Nike’s Air Jordan brand have spent decades delivering the most iconic and industry-defining sneakers on the market. Some, like the Air Jordan 1, are iconic market favourites which never fail to find popularity, while some other silhouettes are more niche and have a smaller following of sneakerheads gearing up for each release. Some of the latter include the industry behemoth’s collaborations with smaller brands.
One such underrated release came from last year’s collab between manilla-based basketball boutique Titan22 and Air Jordans to create the Titan x Air Jordan 23 Retro SP, in celebration of Titan22’s 10-year anniversary! Titan22 have worked with Nike before on their LeBron range, but this is their first ever Air Jordan silhouette.
The collab didn’t hold back in designing this incredible sneaker, and the details included are exquisite. Pure white outsoles sit underneath a neutral rubberised midsole which is designed to appear as though it is stretched around the exterior and frames a neat black toe cap. The upper – made almost entirely from high grade leather – is entirely black with red outer stitching, and golden lightning bolts taken from Titan22’s logo replace the Air Jordan 23’s usual patterning.
The sneaker’s tongue is crisp white with irregularly sized ‘holes’ detailing geometric patterns in bright red, so trypophobics beware! The matching red stitching frames the entire upper all the way around to the heel and vertically up the back of the sneaker where the lightning bolts meet at their source point.
The final gorgeous details are done in an opulent metallic gold and include the Titan22 lightning bolt in a fist logo on a metal badge on the tongue and printed on the inner of the right sneaker, and likewise for Air Jordan’s Jumpman logo on the left sneaker. Even the soles are gorgeous, with curvy patterning reminiscent of the natural bark of a tree, or the swirls of a fingerprint. This incredible colourway released last December and with the pandemic and the resultant loss of earnings for many around the world, got lost in the noise of 2020! This is definitely a truly underrated sneaker, grab yourself a pair today!