The Air Jordan 40’s anniversary run has been working through Michael Jordan’s back catalogue one number at a time, and the next one out is the strangest pick it could have made. The 28 edition arrives October 2 in black, with a zippered shroud wrapping the upper, and the color that shroud is hiding is the entire point. Jordan Brand went looking for a shoe to quote and landed on the one nobody in 2013 could agree about.
The Air Jordan 40 is the anniversary model, and Jordan Brand built it as a real performance shoe rather than a commemorative one. It runs a full-length Zoom Strobel unit stacked on top of full-length ZoomX foam, which the brand says is the first time it has layered those two that way. Internal straps handle containment, and the outsole carries a herringbone pattern cut for this shoe specifically. That construction stays the same across the anniversary colorways. What changes is which shoe in the line each makeup is arguing with, and so far the series has played it safe. The 14 arrived in September reaching for a racing reference everyone already understood. Forty years is the pitch, and the shoe has to carry it on a court as well as on a shelf.
The 28 is a harder sell, because the shoe it quotes is where the signature line stopped being easy to love. The Air Jordan XX8 landed on February 16, 2013 in Black and Electric Green, and it was hidden. A Schoeller mesh shroud zipped from the toe up to the top of the collar and covered the whole shoe, so what sat on the shelf was a black sleeve with a zipper down the middle. Open it and there was an electric green bootie underneath. Some people called it the most interesting thing Jordan Brand had done in a decade. Plenty of others would not put it on.
The 40 “28” repeats the trick rather than referencing it politely. The shroud is back and it wraps the upper the same way, with the zipper running up the instep and a pull tab at the top. The green is back underneath it, in the bootie lining, on the Jumpman at the collar and on the Nike mark at the heel. The outsole is translucent and reads icy blue against all that black. Jordan Brand is calling the green Barely Volt this time, which is a considerably gentler name for a color that spent 2013 being called Electric Green.
Reaching for the XX8 is a real choice, and a better one than another safe reference. The anniversary series exists to remind people the line has forty years behind it, and a run that only quotes the beloved models is telling half the story. The XX8 is the point where Jordan Brand pushed performance basketball further than its customers were willing to follow, and a decade of distance has been kind to it.
The other thing worth noticing is that this is a quiet shoe carrying its color on the inside. An all-black exterior with a volt lining rewards the person wearing it rather than the person looking at it, which is an unusual posture for a signature line that has spent most of forty years shouting. It is also the closest thing the 40 has offered to a design argument rather than a color story, and the series is better for having one. Put the zipped and the open frames side by side and the case makes itself. Closed, the 40 “28” is a black boot with a Jumpman on it, the kind of shoe that disappears on a broadcast camera. Open, it is the loudest thing in the anniversary series. Jordan Brand has built something with two entirely different personalities depending on whether the wearer feels like showing anyone.
The 40 “28” carries $200, the same as the 14 before it and the same as the rest of the Air Jordan 40 line, so Jordan Brand is not charging a premium for the tribute. That is the right call. Anniversary colorways of a current performance model get made in volume and get bought to be played in, so they rarely build much of a resale market. The ones that eventually do are usually the ones people argued about first, and the XX8 spent years as the Jordan nobody wanted before it became the Jordan people write about.
The Air Jordan 40 “28” in Black and Barely Volt releases October 2 on SNKRS and at select Jordan Brand retailers, with SNKRS listing a 7 a.m. launch. The style code is IR2084-001 and retail is $200. The Air Jordan 1 Low OG “Howard” lands the day before it on October 1, and the Nike GT Future is the closest comparison in the wider Nike Basketball line for how the Strobel unit behaves.
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