Black and White - Chicago

For the early tries, I wanted to achieve the cracked collar by aging and hardening the inside of sweatshirt fabric. Having the fibers more compressed and firm would give it that crinkled and distressed vinyl look. The problem that I learned from it was that is was very stiff to the point of being uncomfortable. For the Black and White, I glued that fabric to veg tan leather. Adding too little foam for the padding made for the most uncomfortable shoe ever.
I went to add more padding for the second attempt being the Chicago which worked a bit better but didn’t have the flexibility I was after.
Let’s address the elephant in the room now. The shape of the Black and White is horrendous. Not vertical at all and panels and Swooshes do not line up. But everyone needs to start somewhere!
Keep in mind too that I did not have a sewing machine for the attempt on these two, so I had to hand sew everything.

With the leather used being a lower quality more firm material, it was more difficult getting it shaped over the last correctly. The Black and White was super difficult and as a result was not very smooth thus giving a jagged and straight look instead of a more fluid and curved look.
For the holes, the original stencil I got was a more symmetrical look like the newer models. A nail was the only tool I had to make the holes with a fine Dremel coming in after to smooth them up.
With the new stencil for the Chicago I had an actual hole puncher which worked better than the previous try.

With a farther view you can really see how much worse the toe boxes are. The Chicago pair reminds me of a clown show with how curvy it is.
The tongues of the 1985 Jordans were taller than what is available today so for that I had to sew them by hand as well along with making my own tongue label by laying a stencil on some nylon that I had stiffened up and then spray painted. It came out better than I expected but was not able to get the trademark ‘R’ on them.

For the wings logo I referenced a photo of the original design from the 80s as it has a more hand drawn look to the writing instead of the modern day typed look. I found a high resolution png of the modern day Wings logo which I did for the Chicago which turned out very well.

Here is a side by side of the first attempt at the 1985 Wings logo that I stenciled on the Black and White versus the screen printed logo on my updated Chicago. You can see the difference in the crispness as well as other details such as thicker and smoother heel padding, softer and consistent heel cracking, along with a taller and padded tongue.

Through the years of trial and error, being able to see how far I came is always rewarding. From a janky and crooked shape to a perfect coke bottle silhouette.