In our latest mission to create a classic sneaker colorway, we decided to try and revamp the Air Jordan 4 with a grey and yellow makeover. Especially with New Balance championing the return of light grey shoes to mainstream appeal, we decided it was time to do our bit in showing how great dark grey can look on a pair of sneakers. So, if that interests you, check out our finished concept above and read more about our thought process below.
The sneaker comes in a dark grey leather base, with black accents on the wings, laces, lining, and tongue tag, and yellow accents on the heel tab, crown eyelets, and the Jumpman branding on the tongue. The netting also comes in dark grey, draped over a black background, and the sole is comprised of a dark grey and black midsole, paired with a yellow outsole. Lastly, the crown eyelets are covered in a metallic finish, giving them a gold appearance. We think this is quite fitting given their crown shape, but this detail also adds some flair to the shoe, as an in-built piece of jewelry on the upper.
For this concept, we didn’t go into it as much with a clear concept, but rather a mission to use grey and black, a combination we think is severely underutilized, on one of our favorite models the Air Jordan 4. Ever since the first Kaws x Air Jordan 4’s were released, we have been big fans of dark grey uppers on the Air Jordan 4, and we wanted to give it a try on one of our own concepts. However, we chose to return to the original leather upper, rather than Kaws’ suede material, in order to not overcomplicate our model.
When creating our shoes, we thought of the 2000s, and the new Air Jordan colorways that were released in this period, that brought new, non-team colors to classic Jordan models. When thinking of these 2000s colorways, the DMP pack comes to mind, as well as the Lightning Jordan 4’s, another example of yellow looking great on the Air Jordan 4, which retro-ed to great fan appraise last year. Furthermore, the Lightning 4’s also paired yellow details with grey accents, validating our claims that it would look great, even if we have gone about incorporating these two colors in a very different manner.