As a Sprinter van pulled into the parking lot of a nondescript single-level office building in Beaverton, Oregon, the mood amongst the journalists ensconced in its darkly-tinted windows was one of confusion. This was the fabled Nike global headquarters? No lake? No buildings named after athletes? No winding pathways populated with on-the-go employees and Swoosh-ified bikes?

But, a quickly delivered fact broke the fog of confusion. The Department of Nike Archives (D-NA for short) isn’t actually on the Nike campus; instead, it’s located a few blocks away, and its indistinctive nature is by design. Like the old saying goes, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and inside this faceless building lies a vast treasure: Nike and Jordan Brand‘s entire archive.

It’s an exceedingly rare circumstance that outside parties are allowed into D-NA. The reason a small crew of media members was permitted to pass the gates and be hustled in through a thick door, however, was to get hands-on time with Jordan Brand’s “Rare Air” collection, specifically the forthcoming “Rare Air” Air Jordan 3, Air Jordan 4, Air Jordan 11 and its accompanying apparel collection — all backed by archival gems, ranging from Michael Jordan‘s PEs to perfectly-preserved Nike catalogs from the ’80s to show the direct inspirations behind the designs.

 

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“Rare Air” was created around a tagline of “easy to miss, hard to forget,” and, although the concept was originally invented to support a single Air Jordan 1 pack, it received such vast internal support that it grew into a full line. “Rare Air” footwear and apparel draws inspiration from the original design process for Jordan Brand’s iconic silhouettes in the late ’80s, a back-and-forth between brand and supplier with multiple rounds of revisions that ultimately led to the label’s final retail design. It communicates this inspiration through a multitude of “if you know, you know” design tweaks that nod to both the imperfect sampling process of the time as well as more niche inspirations like early production mishaps and Rare Air, a mid-’90s magazine that provided an intimate look at Michael Jordan’s life during his first retirement from the NBA. “We wanted these items to feel like something MJ would have worn or played in during the ‘80s,” said Terrance Harvey, Jordan Brand’s senior manager of global footwear.

On the “Rare Air” collection’s Air Jordan 3, this inspiration manifests through details like flipped Nike Air branding on heel tabs, suede and nubuck textiles in place of Jordan Brand’s classic elephant print, and even artificially-aged midsoles. Other “Rare Air” silhouettes, like the above-mentioned Air Jordan 4 and Air Jordan 11, reward discovery in their own ways. The former, for example, features a number of Velcro-backed tongue tags for personalization options, and two percent of its retail release pairs will feature gold text on the Velcro patch, while the Air Jordan 11 equips its own set of “pre-production” details like a “Jordan” wordmark creeping up the eyelets.

Though even a casual Jordan fan could likely catch these standout details on one or two glimpses, there’s more than enough deep dive storytelling for the ‘heads here as well. Harvey notes that while studying samples and original pairs in the D-NA roster, he continuously noticed details like off-sized logos, missing lines in the famed “Wings” logo, and the registered trademark logo conspicuously absent from tongue tags. “We probably couldn’t get a detail like a missing trademark past our legal department these days,” he noted with a chuckle. “So we had to ask ourselves: how do we commemorate the beauty in these imperfections through a modern lens?”

The ethos expands to the apparel, which features pre-distressed details, cracked logos, inside-out seams, and more, as if pieces had been pulled straight out of a forgotten shipping container from 1988. Visible blue tags on tees and hoodies alike salute a made-in-Japan Nike apparel line from the late ’80s, while the ball-and-wings logo is usually saved for collaborative apparel with A-list partners like Off-White™ and Just Don. “We wanted to provide a sense of discovery with this collection’s details,” said Shelley Yang, an expert designer (yes, that’s her official title) at Jordan Brand. The collection is also an attempt to thread the proverbial needle, providing offerings with enough details to satiate the core Jordan Brand customer who’s steeped in Air Jordan history and grew up with Michael Jordan as an omnipresent figure in their life, but also enough of a “discovery aspect” to hit a target demographic that, being younger, may not have the same deeply personal connection with the man behind the gear — a combination of nostalgia and Internet lore around Jordan Brand products.

The energy behind the “Rare Air” designs, apparel, and footwear alike comes from this multitude of frictions and delightful contradictions. After all, it’s surprising to see an intentional embrace of imperfection from a brand that flows down from arguably the most well-known perfectionist in sports history, but this friction doesn’t separate the product from its purpose. Instead, it humanizes the purpose — a relentless pursuit of greatness — in a straight-from-the-source manner.

“Everybody knows that MJ is the greatest, but his story of becoming the greatest took a lot of trial and error,” said OJ Khoury, a member of the brand creative team for Jordan Brand’s women’s line. “That leaning into imperfections for growth is a universal truth, and we feel it’s reflected in the product.”

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The Air Jordan 3 “Rare Air” and its corresponding apparel will release May 30, while the Air Jordan 4 “Rare Air” in black will release this summer (the white pair pictured above is a sample that’s not slated for a retail release). The Air Jordan 11 “Rare Air” is slated for a holiday 2025 drop.