Now, Jordan is focusing on the AJ2 as the brand’s next flagship model.

This is a well-established marketing strategy, initiated in 2015, when Nike and Jordan began re-releasing models that had fallen into oblivion, giving them new hype. Although this is an unfruitful move in terms of revenue (just over 10% of Nike’s total sales), the boost in cultural prestige and brand awareness is growing steadily and exponentially.

As we know, the hype cycle is short-lived, as happened with the Dunk: from a feverish gold rush on the part of the Hyperbeast, the market was practically saturated with raffles, resellers, and bots to grab the model. By the time practically everyone managed to get it, the Nike Dunk had lost its appeal.

The upcoming releases scheduled for late 2022 and 2023, collaborations with high-profile brands, artists and renowned streetwear shops, confirm the brand’s willingness to launch strategy, with the ultimate goal of ‘placing’ the right number of units, with the right retail partners, getting it into the hands of the right people and creating a market appeal.

As Vivian Frank, London-based trainer collector and founder of Sneaker Myth, a trainer blog, commented: ‘Currently the Air Jordan 2 is more of a collector‘s item than a lifestyle shoe. A transitory status, until the race for the ‘Holy Grail’ makes it accessible to most.

Currently, the most coveted Jordan silhouettes tend to be the 1s, 3s, 4s and 11s, with new colorways and collaborations with the likes of Dior, Off-White and Travis Scott being released via Nike’s SNKRS app or exclusively via online raffles organized by cult fashion boutiques.  The 2s get a little lost in this hype context, and yet, they have all the right characteristics to become the next Hyperbeast Sneakers. The reason? The sole.

Air Jordan 2s have the peculiarity of the ‘CUPSOLE’, a thick sole found in Nike trainers born in the 1980s, such as the Air Force 1 and Air Jordan 1. The fortune of the AJ2s may lie in this type, as it is currently trendy and in high demand on the market.

Nike managed to “prepare” the market to welcome the return of the Jordan 2 in time: before his untimely death, the brand commissioned the late Virgil Abloh to design a shoe based on an old pair of Air Jordan 2s found in a state of decay in the Jordan archives. Abloh’s genius did the rest: he re-designed the famous model with a sole “crumbled” by the wear and tear of time and yellowed, which were then launched in November 2021 and resold on StockX for just over $1,000.

A couple of months later, Atlanta streetwear shop ‘A Ma Manière’ made its own version of the Jordan 2s, replacing the leather upper with a suede material.

Interest in the AJ2s is growing month after month: sales have already reached record figures on StockX. The curious thing about the whole ‘Hype’ thing is knowing that its luck doesn’t lie in the collaborations, the influencers wearing it, the best marketing actions in history. Its luck comes from the shape of the sole.