Jordan Brand just announced a release date for its highly anticipated collaboration with French luxury goods brand, Dior. Partnerships between luxury brands and streetwear brands are becoming more common lately. Although crossovers have taken place between Supreme and Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Burberry in the past, luxury sneaker collabs are new to the game. In 2017, Adidas and designer Pharrell worked with Chanel to produce a Human Race NMD, which retailed for just over $1,000, and now sells for as much as $10,000. Last year, Adidas also announced they would be doing a collaboration with Prada, a luxury goods brand known for its handbags. Joint efforts between sneaker brands and luxury brands are extremely successful at generating hype for releases, and I foresee more collabs on luxury sneakers in the coming years.
At the forefront of the Jordan and Dior partnership is the Air Dior 1, a deluxe remake of the iconic Air Jordan 1. The grey and white shoes will be made in Italy, constructed with a calf-leather upper. Something that sets the sneaker apart from gray Jordan 1s that one could pick up at a Footlocker is the swoosh, which is covered in a Dior Oblique jacquard and surrounded with black stitching, serving as the most eye-catching aspect of the Dior 1s. The outsole adds a splash of color to the neutral colorway, where transparent ice-blue rubber reveals a Dior logo underneath. Additionally, the wings logo on the side of the sneaker reads, “Air Dior,” and the tongue tag features the swoosh along side “Dior Air.” Other details include the Dior print material on the tongue and the silver Jumpman metal hang-tag. The shoes will come in both high and low models, with expected retails of around $2,000.
Today, Jordan and Dior released a preview of the collection worn by none other than the designer of 2019’s most hyped sneaker, Travis Scott. The sneakers will release alongside a collection of clothing and accessories, including wool suits, suede hoodies, cashmere sweaters, pants, and shirts. The capsule will also incorporate jewelry, leather goods, hats, ties, socks, and scarves, which will all be handmade in Italy. It can be assumed that the clothes and accessories will steep retail prices as well.
Both the sneakers and goods will be available in extremely limited quantities at select Dior stores and pop-up shops in April of this year. It is unclear whether they will be released online, but I predict there may be a surprise drop at some point on the Nike SNKRS app. A handful of pairs have been distributed to celebrities, who have been seen wearing the shoes at events, making the Dior 1s even more appealing. With that being said, it is safe to assume that a decent amount of these pairs will be given out to friends and family, increasing the difficulty for customers to get their hands on a pair. Furthermore, many are speculating that the resale prices are likely to be two to three times the original retail prices, reaching upwards of ten thousand.
