The Air Jordan XX3 By Designers Tinker Hatfield & Mark Smith

One look and you can tell this isn't your average basketball shoe. What I especially like about the shoe is that there is nothing else that has looked like it before and there has yet to be anything comparable since. The shoe is the last in the long line of numbered Air Jordans stretching back to 1984/85 with the Air Jordan 1. The XX3 evokes a nostalgia and aura that stirs emotion in the hearts of sneaker collectors and Michael Jordan fans. The shoe becomes a symbol of Michael Jordan's unparalleled career which served as inspiration and enabled Tinker Hatfield and Mark Smith to capture the mystique and prestige of the man himself for the 23rd anniversary of Michael Jordan's signature shoe line. What the shoe represents almost outweighs what it actually is; a very well designed and aesthetically pleasing shoe.
The silhouette is sleek and smooth which compliments the organic lines that construct the shoe. The smooth, simplistic lines of the shoe come together to create a complexity of arrangement with strategic placement of computerized stitch patterns on the medial and lateral sides of the shoe and the geometrical patterns which serve the purposes of support, weight reduction, and flexibility that comprise the seamless, one-piece midsole that wraps the entire shoe.
Design is not just what looks good, it is also what works well (if its intended purpose is to be functional). While I don't have the time to address every innovation on the shoe, I will concentrate on the most innovative feature of the shoe which appears to be the simplest (which was anything but). It is two little holes affixed to the tongue of the shoe that serve as guides for the laces. This very simple idea serves its exact intended purpose beautifully while not subtracting anything from the overall design and flow of the shoe. It could even be said it enhances it.
The smooth patterns and interaction of natural, complimentary lines of the shoe are especially pleasing to the eye and enable you to receive the many complexities of the shoe as a simplistic whole which flows 360 degrees around the entire shoe. They all run together like the shoe was a piece of clay in a stream molded naturally by time. And that, in essence, is how this shoe came to be. This shoe is design, form and function in harmony as demanded by Michael Jordan for the benefit for all sneaker enthusiasts.