Michael Jordan is rocking Mids, so Mids are cool now

Long has been the debate in the sneakerhead community: Can one respectably rock Mids? The OG himself has weighed in with a resounding yes.

Michael Jordan was photographed by photographer TrigShotIt yesterday wearing the Jordan 1 Mid ‘Heat Reactive – Color Change’ on the basketball court.

Take a look here:

The shoe dropped last month and is one of the most eye-catching of the recent mids, similar to the Civilist X Nike SB Dunk that dropped last year, using, as it says on the tin, heat reactive technology to change from what initially looks like the OG Black/White ‘Panda’ colorway into something a bit more trippy.

But ok—back to the Mids debate. For the uninitiated—Jordan 1s, which launched in 1985, originally debuted in the Jordan 1 High silhouette, with a low dropping in that original run and thus also considered an OG. The Jordan 1 High was rereleased again in 1994/1995 but didn’t garner much enthusiasm at the time, returning again in the early 2000s when the mid-cut, which came up lower on the ankle and had a slightly slanted upper, made its debut alongside the return of the broader Jordan 1 line.

Especially in the 2010s when fans started clamouring more for the Jordan 1 High to resemble the original and the silhouette experiments moved to different variations, the Mid has garnered little respect amongst many sneakerheads. The Jordan 1 High is the shoe of limited, prestige releases, as is sometimes the Low, and the Mid has been used as the mass market shoe, accessible to buy off the shelf in a time when especially in the last three years, Highs rarely sit, and often sell for multiples of their price on reseller sites and in reseller stores.

For some sneakerheads, Mids are disrespected as the cheaper, worse made knock off of the true silhouette, often picked up by those who don’t know better and thus reveal themselves to not know that they shouldn’t be wearing Mids.

But especially in a landscape where Highs are harder and harder to get, Mids being accessible has kept Jordan Brand accessible, not only for those for whom the Mid cut is easier to wear, but for those who want to get their first Jordan without breaking the bank.

And back to this trippy color-changing Mid—especially in the last few years Mids take more risks, trying many different colourways that the sanctified Highs would never.

Because of that, Mid defenders have grown louder and louder, and now have gotten Jordan himself to weigh in, who has dropped his official stamp of approval.

So rock your Mids. If the GOAT does it, so can you.