Air Jordan 1 "Metallic Burgundy"

The Air Jordan 1 in Metallic Burgundy is one of the original colorways released in 1985, part of the first wave of the silhouette that launched alongside Michael Jordan’s rookie NBA season. Before Nike formalized style codes and before Jordan Brand existed as a separate label, these early iterations were simply the Air Jordan 1, produced in a handful of colorways that were tied directly to the shoe’s debut moment in basketball culture.

The Metallic Burgundy build follows the same construction found across the 1985 lineup: a high-top leather upper with the winged Air Jordan logo on the ankle, Nike Air cushioning in the heel, and the cupsole that would become one of the most referenced silhouettes in sneaker history. The burgundy colorway applies a deep red-wine tone to the leather panels alongside metallic detailing, giving it a palette that reads as more restrained compared to the Black/Red Chicago or Royal colorways that tend to dominate conversation around the original run. That relative quietness has made it a less obvious entry point historically, though it sits in the same production context as those more frequently cited pairs.

The High 85 designation, used in later retro releases referencing this era, reflects the straighter toe box, lower collar, and narrower construction of the 1985 originals compared to subsequent reissues. Those physical differences matter to collectors tracking the evolution of the mold across decades of production. Original 1985 pairs predate the modern infrastructure of numbered SKUs and structured release systems, which makes documentation of the earliest colorways like this one an important part of building an accurate record of where the Air Jordan line actually started.