When Jordan Brand dropped the XXXIV last year the overall consensus was this is a great looking basketball shoe that performed well. The shoe was like nothing we had seen before and thats what most have come to expect from the Jordan flagship shoe. Having seen what they cooked up last year held high hope for what we would see this year but many instead were left scratching their head.
While I can respect the nod to brands heritage over the years with certain details that hint at designs of yesteryear sometimes those additional design features are just unnecessary and In my opinion take away from the shoes appeal. It happened last year when for whatever reason the need to put ‘Nike Air’ on the heel was implemented and looked out of place. Instead of using that space to do something different it looked like a lazy last ditch effort to tie in the success of the originals and it just didn’t work for me -all the releases didn’t have Nike Air but something more unique could have been done-.
On to the XXXV. When Images of the 35 surfaced immediately comparisons between the Reebok Shaqnosis and ES22 were noted. Truthfully, one would be hard pressed to argue otherwise that the design of the 35 doesn’t take cues from at least one of those shoes if not both and that is a bit depressing. although many of us love the Shaqnosis and ES22 you expect more in the way of design on a flagship Jordan shoe that to borrow design cues from another brand -especially Reebok-.
With that said the 35 isn’t a terrible looking shoe and references also made to the Jordan V -one of my all time top 10 favorites- is a nice touch. The fact that performance reviews have been mostly positive adds to the allure on these from just a purely technical aspect and for those that don’t know what a Shaqnosis or ES22 is then these aren’t half bad -unfortunately most of us do- and for that, I’m out. How do you feel about them, drop a comment below.
