(Yuku isn't letting me quote...)
[color= rgb(255, 0, 0)]Trappedintime wrote:[/color]
[color= rgb(255, 0, 0)]It's obviously a business, but I find it completely hypocritical for people to talk about how it's all about basketball, about new color ways and models and what not. Get a clue: you're complaining, yet supporting a company dedicated to one man, one logo, one brand. All dedicated to a guy playing a game of basketball. The magic surrounding new models and what he'd be rocking in the all-star gme went away when he did. It's over. To hang onto the nostalgia yet bash Nike/Jordan for carrying it on by releasing retros and re-retros every 5-6 year just really clashes.Jordan came into the game at the perfect time. Tinker Hatfield designed shoes at the perfect time. His designs and MJ's game were a match that won't be made again. How creative can any new sneakers be at this point? Most of the designs by any brand are iterative, not mindblowingly fresh. Likewise, none of these companies invests in materials as good as the ones used 20 years ago because it doesn't serve them much purpose when only the minority care about the shoes enough, collet enough of them, wear enough of them to really even notice. Trust me, they have research that shoes this forum is the minority. Their production methods are different for numerous reasons.The reality is that the sneaker revolution was a one-time thing. [/color]
We're now living in a time that can only look back to what once was. Studies now show that the more expensive running shoes are actually the worst for injuries and are selling worse. So Nike and most other companies are going back to cheaper shoes with less expensive and cheaper materials to a) appeal to the "lighter is better" performance studies and b) increase purchase cycles to compensate for less expensive designs. Basketball sneakers have stayed away from this to a large part, but the best models for performance are still generally cheaper. Jordan retros are great because the technology is outdated and wearing them as a prformance basketball shoe makes little sense. Yet the prestige and nostalgia of the brand is leveraged to make up for the cheaper sales of many more in demand performance shoes.Can you blame them for trying to cash in while using cheaper materials like most other companies? Can you blame them for re-positioning them as casual fashion? If people would buy more of the newer models the retros wouldn't hold such high demand for the company to hang over consumers. But look around the forums, look at yourself. Do you wear retros to ball in or do you wear them out and about? To match your clothing and coordinate with whatever else you're wearing? It's not an us vs them thing, we're largely responsible for how things have moved to where they are today.
Jordan Brand designs may not be incredible like the OG run, but I'd argue most of the sneaker game is based on nostalgia. Very few new lines have proven overly successful in the past decade, certainly not enough to carry an entire brand. In that regard, Jordan is almost held hostage by its past success. And will continue to be. It's okay though! Retros have almost become the casual off-court shoe for basketball fans and ballers.There's only the next retro to move onto, or next year's worth of retros. The entire "onto the next one" mantra is really a sign of retros. During MJ's paying days, most people got one or two pairs. There wasn't this constant flow. There wasn't a collection mentality. It was a seasonal thing be it Air Maxes or Jordans. You got your pair and wore them until the next one came out. But we, the people who built that, demanded more. We showed we wanted to go back and collect all of those we had over 10-20 years in a matter of months. We facilitated the sales! Sure, hype beasts are on it now too, and it's at an all-time high, but in a few years that will fade away as well. JB is just doing what is most fiscally responsible and business savvy: flood the market with releases. Give everyone what they want on a monthly basis rather than an annual basis. Root out the reseller scum (which is not the same as collectors or traders. These are scalpers, just like ticket scalpers).
Trappedintime,
Finally got around to reading your post...been really busy lately. I'm not going to lie...you dropped some science on me.
Perhaps the sneaker revolution was indeed a one time thing. Perhaps the hype that surrounded NEW releases and the innovation provided by the unique partnership of a player like Jordan to market and designer like Tinker to craft won't come along again. Perhaps most brands are in fact iterative, and don't bring that 90's fire to the table like they used to...I mean you think back and it really wasn't just Nike. Reebok with the Shaqnosis, the Kamikazes (Shawn Kemp for all of the young dudes in here), Adidas with the Kobes late in the decade and later on with the T-Macs...Shoot, even Fila was getting it in with Grant Hills, but Jordan was different...and you're right about that. AND THEY SHOULD STILL BE DIFFERENT.
Maybe it appears silly to hang onto nostalgia and yet bash newer retros which do, in fact, perpetuate that nostalgia...but I'm yearning for a different thing.
I want more than sneakers. I want more than my memories. I want the brand back.
Like you said...dudes just don't rock Js for ball anymore. They turn away from retros because of outdated technology and JB has caught onto that. I can't blame them for cashing in on their prestige to supplement the sales of their performance sneakers. I mean look at my sig...I created Team Wallstreet
.
The thing that gets me though is the fact that there is nothing, and, judging by the essentially failed run (in my estimation at least...I know some dudes were feeling the .5 series for the court) of the Melo sig-line...and also what will soon be a major flop if JB continues to design sigs for Wade, never will be anything new to look forward to...well...unless you count retro pluses like the ahh...miraculous color schemes such as the Pea-Pod, The "Flip", The Green Beans, whatever the heck those candy-colored 2s were, and...oh heck, since our parent company that we hate so much and refuse to sport the beautiful NIKE AIR on shoes anymore because of, is dropping Foamposite after Foamposite, and we ahh...are our own separate entity, let's just go ahead and drop some anodized 1's, not only butchering our flagship shoe, but biting the very company we claim to have cut all ties with. Yeah, that sounds about right. Sorry for the salt, NT. I just want you guys to see how retro plus is continually failing us...again...again...and again. There is in fact nothing new to look forward to. That was one of the hallmarks of the brand, and one of the reasons I was always so hyped on JB growing up. Something new. "Man...those straps on the 8's were dope! My olympics were light as heck, but these'll NEVER come untied on the court with the straps done up!" Yeah...that was me. CAN YOU GUYS FEEL ME?
I WAS ONE OF THOSE DUDES WHO BOUGHT A PAIR A YEAR AND TREASURED THEM LIKE MY OWN FEET. I WAS ONE OF THOSE DUDES WHO MIGHT AS WELL HAVE NAMED MY SNEAKERS THEY WERE SO CLOSE TO ME. I WAS ONE OF THOSE DUDES WHO WORE MY KICKS ON THE COURT AND OFF NOT ONLY BECAUSE I COULDN'T AFFORD ANOTHER PAIR, BUT BECAUSE I HAD PRIDE IN THE FACT THAT I WAS ROCKING THE LATEST MODEL OF AIR JORDANS.
Trappedintime, I totally feel you, and you put me on to some things that I didn't see before...as I said before you came in here and dropped science...but this is where I stand, fully and coherently rational or otherwise.
So in short, that's what I miss about the brand. They can keep making bank, and I won't hate on that. Sure, we may have driven it to this point by copping everything that came out retro-wise in hope of recapturing our childhood dreams, and thus prompting a new generation to mindlessly gobble up pairs of kicks like stray 150$ baseball cards and rock them to impress girls in a mall near you, but we sure as heck didn't drive them to lose their drive. We sure as heck didn't drive them to lace the likes of Melo and D Wade, two of the greatest 3 ball-players of the current era, with average looking kicks that Adidas could've designed in their sleep. No...we didn't. And that's my gripe with Jordan Brand. They can't create anymore. They've lost their touch. 
