words_Nick DePaula
Sorry — it’s only the first of the month and there’s easily already a winner loser for Yeeesh Of The Month.
The Air Jordan 7 Retro OC.
The 7 Retro OC, short for ‘Olympic Collection,’ is inspired by the artwork of Barcelona, Spain born sculptor, ceramicist and artist Joan Miro, known for his intricate graphics, patterning and sculptures throughout a prolonged career that extended into the 1970’s and early 1980’s while Miro aged into his mid-80’s. Barcelona is also of course where Michael Jordan convincingly won a Gold Medal in 1992 as part of the first pro-inclusive US Dream Team. Unfortunately, what we have here is a busy and perhaps forced graphic splash atop an otherwise unassumingly subtle upper made up of several simple overlays and accented by the iconic peaking midsole.
The white and black body colors of the shoe are accented by Spain’s yellow and red national colors along the midsole, while the rest of the synthetic leather upper as well as a first-for-the-VII translucent outsole are topped off with spotty abstract graphics of the American, German, Brazilian and Puerto Rican flags. You would think the flags of the US, Croatia and Lithuania would be included, as those teams made up the 1992 Barcelona-medaling countries, while Brazil finished 5th, Germany 7th and Puerto Rico 8th, respectively. Perhaps even the flag of Spain, maybe? Another missed step in execution due to legalities is the almost well-done packaging, which includes matching imagery on the sides of the box as well as an unprecedented five alternate laces. Unfortunately, the laces are aligned as to mimic the official Olympic Rings logo, yet they’re arranged out of order because the brand couldn’t legally exactly reproduce the recognizable arrangement.
While it was the original VII’s release and Michael’s presence on the stage of the 1992 Olympic Games that caused Tinker Hatfield to declare basketball at that time a “global game,” this type of graphic interpretation could hardly be what Tinker envisioned for the first model he decidedly removed all Nike Swooshes from — setting the stage for the Jumpman to stand on its own and later become a $800 Million business monster all its own.
Releasing Thursday, July 3rd at Barcelona-based boutique Opium, the Jordan 7 Retro OC will be initially released only in limited numbers. There will be a coinciding event taking place at Opium Barcelona beginning at 7:30 pm to celebrate the launch, with guests welcome on an invite-only basis. Look for a more wide release of these closer to August.
Now onto the pics. Yeeesh.
Pictures courtesy: NiceKicks
July 1st, 2008 at 5:37 pm
JB be ashamed
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 am
The outsole is pretty fresh actually. It’d be tough to find an outfit to match with these though. Coogi, can you please do a limited set of outerwear for these? I want to impress some honeys at the mall…
I was looking for another appearence of the word amalgamations, too. That’s among my favorite words ever. You need to find a way to incorporate that into every “Yeeesh” of the month post.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 am
I just looked ‘em over again — and perhaps you’re right Jeremy.
If the upper was more tastefully clean and sans graphics — and it was the outsole where the flags were displayed, then maybe they wouldn’t be so bad. The clear outsole on the VII could be something interesting in the future.
And expect ‘amalgamations’ to make a strong return in August. The 6Rings is releasing afterall…
I will say, to their credit, JB has so many strong releases throughout the year that they CAN test the waters and try new things at times, however much the general audience may not be feeling it, whereas Reebok, Nike Basketball and Adidas have been sticking to their few models each season and continue to play it safe.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
they are so sick its crazy
July 20th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
can you tell me the US release date for these?
my ISS account is NCJH2394