Jordan Retro 3 black cat - Confirmation : deadstockkickz.com

By the time that the Air Jordan III was released in 1988 Michael Jordan was already a basketball superstar and his namesake shoes were already popular items by late-80s standards. The Air Jordan III was, and still is, a head turning shoe. But the third shoe in the Air Jordan line, the Air Jordan III, represented the turning point in Jordan’s transition from popular athlete to cultural phenomenon and, in the process, started Nike’s transformation from a burgeoning athletic shoe manufacturer to a global cultural icon. What happened? It’s partially about design, partially about performance and a lot about timing.

Never before had anyone used an elephant print pattern on an athletic shoe (perhaps for good reason).
Basically, the Air Jordan III looked like no other shoe on the court at the time and the man responsible for its distinctive design was a little known (at the time) designer named Tinker Hatfield. The Air Jordan III was the first Air Jordan shoe to be designed by Hatfield and he obviously did something right, because he would go on to design every Air Jordan shoe through the Air Jordan XV, becoming a design superstar in the process (Hatfield is still with Nike as Vice President of Special Project Design).

Much like the Air Jordan 11 model, we have received a retro Air Jordan 3 annually for the past few years (“True Blue” Air Jordan 3 in 2009 & Air Jordan 3 Black/Cement Grey in 2008). However, we have not seen this particular colorway since it retroed in 2003. Additional rumors have circulated about this shoe being a part of an upcoming Air Jordan Slam Dunk Pack for 2010.