Here’s a fact about sneakerheads: they really know their Roman numerals. Why? Is there some unspoken pact by which they all adhere to a redundant numerical system? No. The real reason lies, somewhat less surprisingly, with a particular line of trainers. More specifically, the most important, influential and genre-defining line of sports footwear ever created – one that also happens to use numerals with each new release.

We’re talking, of course, about the lovechild of sportswear giant Nike and NBA superstar Michael Jordan: the Air Jordan brand. Since 1985, 33 Air Jordan models have acted as the backbone for all sneakers moving forward.

Here’s every sneakerhead’s primer on the brand that started it all, and the best Jordan shoes ever made.

A Brief History Of Air Jordans

The Air Jordan franchise is the fertile soil in which the roots of the sneakerhead movement took hold. This was the birthplace of collector culture and the shoe that cemented the place of the ‘pro model’ trainer in sportswear. Today, the Jordan ‘Jumpman’ logo is every bit as iconic as Nike’s Swoosh or Adidas’ Trefoil.

Logic would dictate that the brand’s story began with Michael Jordan’s first pro model: 1985’s Air Jordan I. However, it was actually a different shoe that paved the way for the hype, the Nike Air Ship, a mysterious precursor to the first official Jordan sneaker and one for which myths and legends abound.

The story goes that, in the mid 1980s, Michael Jordan was being fined $5,000 per game for wearing a certain pair of black and red basketball shoes. These unconventionally coloured kicks broke the NBA’s ‘uniform of uniformity’ rule and so then-commissioner David Stern “threw them out of the game”. Legend has it that MJ continued to wear the sneakers anyway, with Nike picking up the bill.

It’s often mistakenly understood that this shoe was the black and red – or ‘bred’, as they’re known by collectors – Air Jordan I. In fact, it was the Air Ship. Still, the error certainly didn’t harm Nike’s sales. The Air Jordan I was a runaway success and the first sneaker in a 33-year chain of annual releases – each one just as sought-after as the last.