FLOAT 100 · Sneakers · No. 17
Off-White x Air Jordan 1 'Chicago / The Ten'
Designed in a single session with an X-Acto knife, Virgil Abloh's cut-open Air Jordan 1 turned a 1985 basketball shoe into a finished product made to look like a sample, and reset what a sneaker collaboration could be.
- Year
- 2017
- Maker
- Nike / Jordan Brand x Off-White
- By price in sneakers
- 32 of 100
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Create a free account- Official name
- Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG, Off-White 'The Ten'
- Style code
- AA3834-101
- Colorway
- White/Black-Varsity Red, the 1985 'Chicago' colors
- Designer
- Virgil Abloh (Off-White) with Nike and Jordan Brand
- Collection
- 'The Ten', the 'REVEALING' half: Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Presto, Air VaporMax, Blazer Mid
- Retail price
- $190, men's sizes
- First sold
- September 2017, pre-release at NikeLab New York; wider release that fall
- Signature details
- Floating Swoosh, 'AIR' on the midsole, medial text block, red zip tie, 'SHOELACES' laces, exposed tongue foam
- Honors
- 2017 Shoe of the Year at the Footwear News Achievement Awards
- Production
- Not published by Nike
A boxcutter in Beaverton
Virgil Abloh first visited Nike's world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, in October 2016 to start a collaboration. He had been waiting a long time: as a teenager in Rockford, Illinois, he and his friends sketched shoe ideas and mailed them to Nike. 'We were enamored with Air Jordans,' he said in 2017. 'Michael Jordan was larger than life. He was Superman to me.' His archive says he kept the form-letter rejections Nike sent back.
On that first trip he wanted to make something immediately. 'I didn't wait all those years just to have meetings at Nike,' he said. The question he started with, according to his archive, was whether there was actually air inside an Air Jordan 1. He found out with an X-Acto knife, slicing shoes open to show how they were built.
The Air Jordan 1 became the first model of what Nike called 'The Ten': ten Nike, Jordan and Converse icons reworked in roughly ten months from idea to release, one of the fastest collaborations the company says it has completed. 'Most of the creative decisions were made in the first three hours,' Abloh recalled. 'The Jordan I was done in one design session. I work in a very dream-like state. I see it, and it's done.'
Nike split the ten shoes into two themes. 'REVEALING', meant to look hand-cut, open-source and reconstructed, held the Air Jordan 1, Air Max 90, Air Presto, Air VaporMax and Blazer Mid. 'GHOSTING' used translucent uppers on the Converse Chuck Taylor, Zoom Fly SP, Air Force 1 Low, React Hyperdunk 2017 and Air Max 97. A securities filing describing the collection says Abloh changed design elements on each shoe 'by three percent or less' to keep the original silhouette intact.
The architect from Rockford
Abloh was born September 30, 1980, in Rockford, Illinois, to Ghanaian parents; his mother was a seamstress who taught him to sew. He earned a civil engineering degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002 and a master's in architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 2006.
In 2009 he interned at Fendi in Rome alongside Kanye West, and the two began a long creative partnership. He was artistic director of West and Jay-Z's 2011 album Watch the Throne, which earned a Grammy nomination for its packaging. In 2012 he started Pyrex Vision, screen-printing designs on deadstock clothing, and in 2013 he founded Off-White in Milan, describing it as 'the gray area between black and white.'
The Air Jordan 1 sat at the center of his own story. His archive describes him as 'a kid raised in the Chicago suburbs, mesmerized by a man in flight.' His early Pyrex Vision shirts carried the number 23, an homage to Jordan. The original shoe was designed by Peter Moore and released to the public on April 1, 1985; Nike built it in Bulls red and black, with only about 23 percent white, against an NBA rule requiring shoes to be at least 51 percent white.
Abloh's hypothesis, as his archive puts it, was that 30 years after its introduction an in-progress Air Jordan 1 was more interesting than a finished one. 'His AJ1 was a finished product made to look like a sample.'
How to read the shoe
The upper keeps the 1985 Chicago blocking in white, black and varsity red, but the construction is pulled apart. The lateral Swoosh is cut off and reattached so it floats just off the upper, held by visible blue stitching, with an orange tab that looks like a price sticker or gaffer tape. The tongue loses its padding and label so the foam shows, and the collar is left floppy.
Text does the rest. The medial side drops the Swoosh for a block of printed text that reads, per the product description, 'Off-White for Nike Air Jordan 1, Beaverton, Oregon, USA (c) 1985.' The midsole reads 'AIR' in quotation marks, the laces read 'SHOELACES,' and '85' is printed on the inside of the ankle flap.
A complete pair comes with a red plastic zip tie, an 'Off White' Nike paper insert, and extra flat laces in white, orange and green, each printed 'SHOELACES.' Missing accessories are one of the first things collectors check.
Some pairs were never sold at all. Abloh wrote custom midsole slogans on pairs he gave to friends, including 'AIR FLACKO' for A$AP Rocky and 'AIR CANADA' for Drake. Pairs he later signed carry his handwriting on the medial panels; one signed and inscribed size 13 pair, marked 'c. 2017,' 'VIRGIL' and 'OFF-WHITE,' was offered by a dealer at $23,000.
Release, and a market that took off
Nike officially revealed The Ten in late August 2017, after unauthorized photos of the Jordan had already circulated. The first five shoes, including the Air Jordan 1, were pre-released at NikeLab stores in New York (September 9-13), London (September 18-22), Milan (September 21-25) and Paris (September 26-30), alongside two-day 'OFF-CAMPUS' workshops where Nike designers and guests talked about the project.
The wider release dates differ by source. One release calendar lists October 27, 2017; a securities filing says the collection went to European buyers on November 9 by online raffle and to North American buyers on November 20 through Nike's SNKRS app; another market listing gives November 9. All agree on the $190 retail price.
Abloh had already worn the shoe on the red carpet at the Met Gala on May 1, 2017, months before release. By year's end a fashion publication's readers voted it the best sneaker of 2017, and it won Shoe of the Year at the Footwear News Achievement Awards. A 2018 magazine report put early resale prices above $1,500.
Prices kept climbing. A size 11 pair was bought from a private collector for $4,000 in 2020, according to a 2022 securities filing. When Abloh died in November 2021, a business publication reported that the shoe's price on the Chinese resale market leapt within hours to 470,000 yuan, a figure it did not tie to a completed sale. In October 2026 the lowest listed price at one seller was $2,800 across all sizes; at another it was $5,012, for a size 12.
What came after
Abloh returned to the Air Jordan 1 twice in 2018: an all-white pair released in Europe in March, and a blue-and-white 'UNC' pair that he debuted at the 2018 Met Gala. On March 25, 2018, he was named artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton, the first person of African descent to lead the house's menswear line.
He was diagnosed in 2019 with cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare cancer, and kept it private. He died in Chicago on November 28, 2021, at 41. In February 2022, 200 pairs of his Louis Vuitton and Nike Air Force 1 sold at auction for a combined $25.3 million, and a complete set of The Ten was offered at auction in New York that spring with an estimate of $30,000 to $40,000.
In 2026 the Virgil Abloh Archive released its first authorized edition, a near-exact reproduction of his white 2018 Air Jordan 1. Its essay notes that although The Ten used the Chicago colors, his original experiments had been on the white shoe, and calls the 1985 Air Jordan 1 'a genuine icon of American design, up there with the Ford Model-T and the Eames lounger.'
The numbers
- Style code
- AA3834-101
- Colorway
- White/Black-Varsity Red
- Retail price
- $190
- Pre-release
- NikeLab New York, September 9-13, 2017; then London, Milan and Paris
- Wider release
- Fall 2017; sources give October 27, November 9 (Europe) and November 20 (North America)
- Sizes
- Men's only
- Included accessories
- Red zip tie, 'Off White' Nike paper, white, orange and green 'SHOELACES' laces
- Production
- Not published by Nike
Timeline
Virgil Abloh is born in Rockford, Illinois.
The original Air Jordan 1, designed by Peter Moore, is released to the public.
Abloh founds Off-White in Milan.
Abloh makes his first visit to Nike headquarters in Beaverton and begins cutting apart shoes with an X-Acto knife.
Abloh wears the unreleased Off-White Air Jordan 1 'Chicago' to the Met Gala.
Nike officially unveils 'The Ten' and its REVEALING and GHOSTING themes.
Pre-release of the first five shoes, including the Air Jordan 1, begins at NikeLab New York (through September 13).
Pre-releases continue in London, then Milan (from September 21) and Paris (from September 26).
European release by online raffle, per a 2022 securities filing.
North American release through Nike's SNKRS app, per the same filing.
Named Shoe of the Year at the Footwear News Achievement Awards.
An all-white Off-White Air Jordan 1 follows as a European release.
Abloh is named artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear.
A size 11 pair is bought from a private collector for $4,000.
Abloh dies in Chicago at 41; resale prices for the shoe spike in the following hours.
200 pairs of Abloh's Louis Vuitton x Nike Air Force 1 sell at auction for $25.3 million combined.
A complete set of The Ten, Chicago Jordan included, goes to auction in New York with a $30,000 to $40,000 estimate.
The Virgil Abloh Archive issues its first authorized edition, a reproduction of the white 2018 Air Jordan 1.
The world in 2017
Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president.
The president announces the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
The Golden State Warriors beat Cleveland in five games for the NBA title, going 16-1 in the postseason.
A total solar eclipse crosses the United States, the first visible from the continental U.S. since 1979.
Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Texas as a Category 4 storm and floods Houston.
The New York Times publishes its investigation of Harvey Weinstein.
The Houston Astros win the World Series in seven games over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $190 | Asking price, not a saleOriginal retail price, men's sizes. |
| 2020 | $4,000 | Private saleSize 11, bought from a private collector; disclosed in a 2022 securities filing. |
| Oct 1, 2026 | $2,800 | Asking price, not a saleLowest listed price across all sizes, before marketplace fee. |
| Oct 1, 2026 | $5,012 | Asking price, not a saleLowest listed price at a second seller, size 12. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Off-White x Air Jordan 1 'Chicago / The Ten' is number 32 of 100 in the sneakers entries of the FLOAT 100. 22 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (17 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Abloh said the Air Jordan 1 for The Ten was designed in one session.
- As a teenager, Abloh mailed sneaker sketches to Nike and kept the rejection letters.
- Abloh wore the shoe to the Met Gala in May 2017, months before anyone could buy it.
- Pairs Abloh gave to friends carried custom midsoles, such as 'AIR FLACKO' for A$AP Rocky and 'AIR CANADA' for Drake.
- The 1985 original was built with only about 23 percent white, breaking an NBA rule that shoes be at least 51 percent white.
- Abloh's first experiments for the shoe were on an all-white Jordan 1, not the Chicago colors.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026