About

Air Jordan 3

Search all three photos on the back for a swoosh and you won’t find one. The Air Jordan 3 from 1988 is the first shoe in the series without the trademark on the upper: the tongue and heel instead bear the jumping figure that from here on became the face of the line. It’s the shoe with which the series broke away from the parent company, made precisely at the moment the namesake was about to leave.

The print is always on the same two corners

The grey craquelé print, known as elephant print, sits on the toe and around the heel, and nowhere else. Swap the colors and that stays the same: white with grey, black with orange — the positions don’t change. Tinker Hatfield, here for the first time as designer of the line, used the print as a frame around the smooth leather rather than as wallpaper, and it is precisely that restraint that makes it recognizable.

Not high, not low

The 3 introduced a profile the basketball shoe of the time didn’t have: the collar dips below the ankle bone but stays above the low cut. Players gained freedom of movement without being fully exposed. On the Air Jordan 1 from three years earlier the high shaft with the wing logo was still the whole story; here the shaft itself became the statement by what it omits.

The air became visible here

There is a window in the heel showing the air chamber, the first time in this line that the technology is visible. Above the sole lies tumbled leather with a coarse grain, and small metal rings run through the eyelets. The Air Jordan 4 a year later swapped the closed leather for open nets with wings; the Air Jordan 5 added another layer of drama. The 3 is the calmest of the three, and for many collectors therefore the benchmark.

Note the code and the hybrid

The adult version carries style code 136064; codes like 441140 and 429487 are kids’ sizes, and that designation is not always in the title. One trickster also slips through here: the 3LAB5 carries elephant print but is an Air Jordan 5 hybrid, not a 3. So the print isn’t enough to go on; the two fixed corners and the mid-top cut are.

On this page you can see which versions of the Air Jordan 3 are currently hottest according to the Hypescore, the lowest price they’re available from, and in how many shops they are in stock.