Air Jordan 1 High OG “Love Letter” Puts Jordan’s 2003 Sign-Off on the Collar

There are four words on the collar of this shoe and they are the entire reason it exists. Nike’s own copy for the Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Love Letter” explains it directly: when Michael Jordan retired, his final love letter to the game closed with “Much Love and Respect,” and that sign-off is printed on the collar and the hang tag. It released August 1 and it is a general release, which makes it one of the few Jordan retros this year whose story is documented rather than invented.

The Air Jordan 1 came out in April 1985 at $65, designed by Peter Moore, who also drew the original Wings logo and, two years later, the Jumpman, based on a photograph from Life magazine. Moore died in May 2022 at 78. The origin story most people repeat about the shoe is worth handling carefully, because Nike’s own account undercuts it. Nike’s history page says the shoe the NBA objected to in the 1984 preseason was the black and red Nike Air Ship, not the Air Jordan 1, and that the league’s letter is dated February 25, 1985, citing a rule requiring shoes to be at least 51 percent white and to match team colors. Nike’s own telling cites a figure of $1,000 a game in an anecdote about Rob Strasser, not the $5,000 that circulates everywhere else, and Jordan never wore the contested colorway in a regular season game. He wore it at the Slam Dunk Contest on February 9, 1985.

The build matches the sentiment better than most commemorative retros manage. Nike’s colorway string reads Shadow Brown, Light British Tan and Team Red, and the upper is nubuck leather and soft suede, materials Nike explicitly says will take on a patina with wear. That is a reasonable way to build a shoe about something getting deeper over time, and it is a rare case of a Jordan Brand material choice carrying an argument rather than just a finish. Two things need correcting in circulation. The collar reads “Much Love and Respect,” not “With Love and Respect,” which one Tier 2 outlet has printed. And the “Love of the Game” contract clause, which a retailer attached to this release, appears nowhere in Nike’s copy. That clause was in Jordan’s Bulls contract and let him play basketball whenever he wanted, and he has described it himself, including in his 2009 Hall of Fame speech, but it is not what this shoe is about.

The letter itself is the part worth knowing. Jordan played his final NBA game on April 16, 2003, with the Washington Wizards, at 40. Four days later Nike ran a full-page advertisement in Sunday newspapers carrying a letter addressed to basketball, opening with a line about the nearly 28 years since the two of them met and closing with the sign-off now stitched into this shoe. Kobe Bryant would consciously echo it a dozen years later. An earlier version of this post described it as an open letter Jordan wrote to the game, which is close enough to be defensible and vague enough to be useless. The specific thing is the sign-off, and the specific thing is what Nike put on the collar. Worth noting too that the shoe carried a different name for most of its run-up. Both Sneaker Bar Detroit and JustFreshKicks published it in June as “Love the Game,” on the same style code, before Nike settled on Love Letter at retail.

Retail is $185, with the grade school pair at $140, little kids at $85 and toddlers at $70. That $185 is the standard Air Jordan 1 High OG number in 2026, up from $180 through 2025, and every High OG on this year’s calendar is priced the same, from All-Star in February to Royal in October. So this is not a premium release, whatever the story attached to it. The secondary market has priced it as what it is. StockX shows a last sale of $119 against a lowest ask of $104 and a three-month average of $133, all of it well under retail, which is what happens to a general release with real inventory behind it. Market data, not Nike data, and it moves.

The Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG “Love Letter” released August 1, 2026. Style code DZ5485-201 for the men’s pair, FD1437-201 for grade school and FD1412-201 for little kids, retail $185. It is still listed on Nike’s site and at Sneakersnstuff, Hibbett, Shiekh and DTLR. For more, see our Air Jordan coverage.

Source: Sneaker Bar Detroit

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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