Jordan Brand is the undisputed king of sneaker brands. Everything they put out gets snapped up with haste by voracious consumers who just can’t seem to get enough. They’ve built an aura around their products that, quite frankly, is awe-inspiring. People foam at the mouth about their releases months in advance, and grown men and women have been known to act like little children on release day if everything doesn’t go exactly as they had planned.
With all this hype around the brand, and the crazy demand that their products create for themselves (they don’t even have to work the hype machine! The sneakers hype themselves up!), some complain about their lack of innovation, and how they just recycle the same things over and over, changing the color or just slightly tinkering with the layout of the sneaker. It’s an interesting topic, and one that I felt I needed to add my two cents on.
There is some truth to the statement that the brand isn’t innovating like they used to. However, why would they need to? People continue to snap up re-released colorways, new colorways on old shoes, and even team Jordans that borrow heavily from retro silhouettes. You can’t complain about a brand’s lack of innovation when people continue to buy the old stuff. Want to see new models? Want a change? Then stop buying the same things over and over.
The brand is also branching out beyond the retros and team sneakers with new models like the Future (one of the KicksOneTwo staff’s favorite sneakers at the moment), and the upcoming Jordan XX9. With all the new colors of the Futures set to release, there should be something new and fresh for everyone.
In short, there is validity to complaints about a lack of innovation from the brand. However, with the recent push of the Futures as well as other upcoming releases, Jordan Brand is in as good of hands as ever, and 2014 should be a great year for releases.
-RDwyer
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