KanyIZZY
formerly j o 19
- Oct 1, 2004
- 18,655
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Nike Air Jordan Retro 3 OG “Fire Red” 2022
- Thread in 'Jordan Brand' Thread starter Started by Jordanbball,
- Start date
- Aug 10, 2012
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- Jul 14, 2003
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It's still insane to me taking it to the streets to scream accolades to Nike for closely replicating their own product.
- Nov 3, 2016
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- Sep 5, 2000
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To mass produce something that was originally made more than 30 years ago isn’t as easy as it seems.
- Sep 5, 2021
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You must live in a big city.walked into a small footlocker and was able to scoop up fire reds sz 12 and taxi 1s sz 10.5 for family. What a time to buy kicks for retail.
…am I right?
- May 11, 2019
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Woooow. Taxis on the wall. I need another two pairswalked into a small footlocker and was able to scoop up fire reds sz 12 and taxi 1s sz 10.5 for family. What a time to buy kicks for retail.
- Nov 26, 2014
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Mind grabbing me a 10.5 too?walked into a small footlocker and was able to scoop up fire reds sz 12 and taxi 1s sz 10.5 for family. What a time to buy kicks for retail.
- Nov 3, 2016
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That was earlier. The footlocker I was in is across town. Sorry boss
- Nov 3, 2016
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New york city
- Sep 5, 2021
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Yep…I think that qualifies.
- Apr 16, 2019
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I see why you would say that. However, not as easy as it seems. Nike has refined their archival process over the years. It definitely isn't what it was in the mid to late 80s. Shoe lasts, materials sourcing, etc. It can end up being an adventure
rainking
Supporter
- Aug 12, 2016
- 8,303
- 18,100
We've all been down this road 1,000 times before, and it's nonsense. If Nike WANTED to, it could do even better. Amazing how for years people made excuses for the wildly inaccurate retros it was cranking out, and now suddenly the retros are a lot closer than they had been forever. So it turns out it COULD do better all along. And it still can.
But that's only if it wants to. Which likely requires even more investment. And when you sell out every time without making these changes, the business view of it is, why reduce the profit margin when we don't have to? That is all it boils down to, not because it's just wildly difficult to make some dang sneakers practically identical to ones from 30 years ago.
- Apr 16, 2019
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I agree with what you are saying. That's always been my take. I literally just posted a similar take to yours in the Air Penny 1 thread last week I think. Its about the bottom line to Nike and every other brand. And it should be that way. Does Nike care about our complaints? Sure. They care about them as much as they are able to impact the bottom line and the stock price. Not an ounce more. That's business. We've proven to them that we will pay more money for less quality and less accuracy. So what incentive do they have for making a better product other than for marketing to drum up interest and give us an excuse to buy the same product for the 4th time? If they really believed that sneaker enthusiasts and a decent portion of the general public would skip a retro release because the quality and accuracy weren't on point you better believe we would get the best retro ever made. But they know we will continue to buy product regardless.
HOWEVER lol.....that doesn't necessarily negate the difficulty of producing a retro with one for one specs. It's literally cost prohibitive as you pointed out and they have little incentive to do so as we both agree. But there are also changes in availability of materials and technologies. Believe it or not they will lose lasts for significant sizes of a run and producing a last is costly.
rainking
Supporter
- Aug 12, 2016
- 8,303
- 18,100
Right. The only thing I ever take issue with is the idea that recreating the shoes nearly exactly is THAT difficult. With modern tech it shouldn't be whatsoever. OK, maybe the materials won't feel or look 100 percent the same because the world has moved on and suppliers and manufacturing techniques for those materials are different. But as far as proportions and geometries and dimensions and colors go, I'll never buy the idea it just can't be done. Nike just doesn't want to, for whatever reasons--and I'm not entirely convinced it's ALL about money. The new IIIs and, for one other example, the XIs beginning in 2016 prove this. Nike/JB at one point literally gave us trash for many years. At least now they're giving us reasonably acceptable product, though not entirely across the board. The IVs seriously need a redo, as we all know. I bought the WCs in 2016 (and have since sold my pairs; good riddance), and I bought the black cements and fire reds, but that was purely out of nostalgia. Objectively those are some hot-trash retros LOL
- May 14, 2013
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just throwing a little bit of manufacturing context into this whole equation as someone whos worked in manufacturing as engineer and as management for the past 13 years. in general in the context of mass production, going from doing something one way, to do something another way isnt done instantly. especially if you dont want to stop producing and being profitable the entire time in the "old way" while investing in the "new way".
Im currently leading a project at work to fundamentally change the way we manufacture our products so that we can sustain growth at the next level. not only is it going to take 5 years before before we even see anything out of this new manufacturing process its going to take even longer to transition out of the old one. And we're doing so understanding we'll take a hit on profit over a few quarters to do it. If we were trying to keep losses to a minimum or incur no losses at all it would take considerably more time. If i were nike, and people eating up the current stuff anyway, id be less than incentivized to make quick changes that would disrupt what i already have going on.
My guess is when it comes to nike producing jordans, a lot of things changed to accommodate going from the production quantities of 1985 to the millions and millions of pairs they produce in 2022. expand those changes over the tons of manufacturing facilities, thousands of employees, etc. its not that surprising that getting back to the "original shape" has taken as long as it has.
Im currently leading a project at work to fundamentally change the way we manufacture our products so that we can sustain growth at the next level. not only is it going to take 5 years before before we even see anything out of this new manufacturing process its going to take even longer to transition out of the old one. And we're doing so understanding we'll take a hit on profit over a few quarters to do it. If we were trying to keep losses to a minimum or incur no losses at all it would take considerably more time. If i were nike, and people eating up the current stuff anyway, id be less than incentivized to make quick changes that would disrupt what i already have going on.
My guess is when it comes to nike producing jordans, a lot of things changed to accommodate going from the production quantities of 1985 to the millions and millions of pairs they produce in 2022. expand those changes over the tons of manufacturing facilities, thousands of employees, etc. its not that surprising that getting back to the "original shape" has taken as long as it has.
rainking
Supporter
- Aug 12, 2016
- 8,303
- 18,100
Personally, I absolutely get all that. But that's a different matter than when some people say the shoes just CAN'T be built closer to the OGs and that doing so is basically impossible. That's the part I find to be nonsense.
- May 14, 2013
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absolutely. Nothing is impossible. whats realistic is a whole other conversation. its never a question of wheter or not nike can produce it. its about how long will it take for nike to produce something in a way where producing it maximizing their profits. Sometimes that means itll take 15 years before we see it produced in any meaningful quantities.
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rainking
Supporter
- Aug 12, 2016
- 8,303
- 18,100
The real stupidity/frustration as a consumer is, why did Nike ever make them so different in the first place? If it had done them properly to begin with, there wouldn't be anything to change, thereby eliminating the required investment of making changes now or in the future. I've always wondered if it didn't stem at least in part from the company just using whatever lasts, etc. it already had in use when it began producing retros all those years ago. But then, that doesn't really explain why, for example, the 94/95 and 99 and even early 2000s retros were clearly much different (and better in terms of shapes, etc.) from the ones that came a few years later. Why could it make such good IVs in '99 and then change them completely a few years later? It's never appeared completely black and white to me. Some of it defies logic in terms of the manufacturing, at least to my amateur eye. So you had reasonably good lasts/molds already for several retro models, and then you bothered to change them? Wouldn't that have been an unnecessary investment?
- May 14, 2013
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Generally, without knowing nuances of how Nike does what it does, that can easily be answered by demands and goals changing What it took to deliver and meet the demands of 1994-95 are not the same as present day. If had to give my best technical/manufacturing guess? I think because all through out the 90s, Nikes catalogue consisted of many different models that shared a lot of the same parts, technology and tooling. They probably shifted towards manufacturing process that let them create 3 or 4 different models from one set of processes rather than every single shoe having its own special dedicated process. That in and of itself could force compromises in the shape of one of the shoes to accommodate the production of others. But a move like that would allow Nike to pivot between the production of multiple products with out having to create a whole new set up. That would be a huge money saver for them and it would allow them to make more shoes.
That’s just one possible reason. Manufacturing in general has changed drastically between Nikes inception and 2022.
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- Aug 11, 2015
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Gentry 
- Sep 17, 2016
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Which footlocker?
- Mar 7, 2013
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- Jan 2, 2014
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- Mar 7, 2013
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#1 thing toddlers love to do, kick the shoes right off when you get them on. #strugglesYou look happier than him and congrats to him!
