Previous Jordans I made used a heel counter that I made myself instead of using an official one. Those would consist of a thin piece of plastic from a cutting board along with a thin fiber glass sheet which would allow for a thin and sturdy heel, however the shape in the end wouldn’t be perfect. This time I used an official heel counter which after cutting, gluing in, and stitching around, I used a heat gun to shape it around the the last.

After the two shoes were completely lasted up and had the laces still on, I took a heat gun to the heels to warm up the heel counter so when it cooled it would keep its shape.
Here is a side by side with the updated Bred’s on the right and my Chicago’s on the left. You can see how with a true heel counter it will be more vertical while the Chicago’s with the homemade heel counter will bow out more giving it more of an hourglass shape than the desired coke bottle shape.

When looking at photos and real pairs, I noticed that the inside liner has a small mesh knit to it but still smooth. When I was at the fabric store and looking at fabrics for the interior of my car I am restoring, I noticed a giant roll of headliner fabric. When referencing images of the inside of the shoes to the headliner fabric, it was nearly identical.
All shoes today will have a size and manufacturing date in one way or another. The original Jordans would have the size followed by the year, month, day, and then the factory number.
I wear a size 13 so obviously used that size, but have created a screen printed sheet for other sizes as well, and the month and day for the production I used my birth month and day. For a final personal touch I included my initials for the factory number.

When creating the tongue, while I do not have original tongue labels and reused a set from my first attempt on the Black Toes, I was able to get the overall feel and fabric down for the construction of the tongue.
I had heard that Nike, when attempting to recreate the ‘85 Bred, had to melt down the fabric of the outer tongue to get the exact percent of synthetics to then have it reproduced.
I do not have any equipment like that so I had to rely on images from numerous sites. Because those with a Black tongue had a glossy look to them while the White tongues did not, I knew it would not be a simple cotton fabric. Nylon wouldn’t be the correct one as that can be a bit stiffer and have a unique shine to it depending on the way it is produced. Something in the middle would be a synthetic fabric and in this case, would be a taffeta fabric which I was able to get from a guy in India off of Etsy.

When it comes to the application of the Wings logo, a form of foil stamping is applied. The image came out pretty clear, but some leathers are much easier to work with than others which include this one.
Foil stamping is when you apply a piece of foil, not aluminum foil, but kind of like a cross between a vinyl sheet and plastic, on to the leather, and have a heated brass image press into the foil and will transfer the colored foil on to the leather. Finding a matte black was harder than expected but after multiple Amazon, Etsy, and other sites, I was able to get the right one.
After the challenge of finding the right foil, the next obstacle came up on me which was finding the right temperature as well as how much and how long the pressure needed to be to apply it.
I had two stamps custom made, one to deboss the image into the leather, and another which was an outline of everything on the Wings logo to then emboss it giving it a raised look like the orginal Jordans had

There are some creases in the leather displayed in the photo, but this was taken after a few wears as I was super excited to take these out for a spine and run some errands. When I made my Chicago’s I was able to get the waist of the shoe down better and having it be more vertical and snug to the last. This attempt was much easier and has a look similar to that of one that is to be sold to the public on launch day and not look like some wonky homemade project as the first ones did.

1985 Bred UPDATE