Today’s protagonist, Air Jordan 3 Retro “International Flight”, is a masterpiece by Air Jordan. It is widely known that Air Jordan 3 gains a number of popularity and is always being praised. This time, drawing inspiration from the 1988 Midsummer Night’s Charity Game in L.A. hosted by Magic Johnson, the Air Jordan 3 Retro “International Flight” is born and gets a retro makeover that feels as if it were pulled right out of the ’80s.
From a personal level, I’ve never seen a sneaker’s appearance more beautiful than that of Air Jordan 3 Retro “International Flight”. Well, as you can see, it has the typical appearance of Air Jordan 3 and the symbolic “burst” design. Meanwhile, the unique blue and red color scheme is rather visual-impact. Printed on the left side of the tongue is “MJ” signature. “What a wonderful model that excels nature!” I just couldn’t help exclaiming the moment I got the shoe.
In some reviewers’ term, the shoe is a pleasant surprise when they first pulled it out of the box for it features soft premium feeling tumbled leather. Besides the fact, another highlight of the shoe is it features front and rear separated Air Sole and equips a visible Air cushion at the heel, providing awesome cushioning and super nice court feeling. You can rightly feel the comfort the minute you put them on. And the feeling becomes more prominent when you are running. You’ll definitely receive feedback it offers instantly. To summarize, its performance really surprises me.
Let’s get a detailed look at the upper then. The white and light grey color match well with the classic grey crackle and the flying man logo embroidered on the tongue. And on top of that, there is a large TPU installed in the heel. With the support of all these elements, the foot feeling is very nice. The texture of the shoe feels quite nice. However, a downside is that there are only some air holes in the tongue , which means breathability is insufficient. Therefore, if you are the one who dislike stuffy and airtight feel, you’d better choose other models.
As for wrapping and support, the two aspects are something you can expect. Made of leather, as is mentioned earlier, the shoe wraps well, causing comfortable feelings only. It’s said that the shoelace hole design at the front makes up for the lack of wide toe wrap. For this, you can have some experience yourself. In addition, there is a thickened foam inside the heel, which ensures the wrapping of the ankle. In terms of the support, it is not bad, either. We should, objectively speaking, credit the nice experience to the large TPU. Whenever and wherever you make direction changes, the shoe doesn’t yield deformation in the least.
Regarding to the shoe’s grip, we might as well check the pattern of the outsole first. The raised pattern of the forefoot will produce friction with all kinds of ground, thus offering brilliant grip for us. It can hold the ground firmly when players change directions suddenly. But what confuses me is that I don’t see why there are some claiming the outsole a deal breaker. Maybe it is because of the durability of the outsole — if you are into outdoor courts which are relatively rougher than indoor ones, the outsole wears out easily. And since there are many grains in sole, gravels and dust are attracted to the outsole easily, which means you will need to take the trouble to clean it frequently so as to stay motivated.
Overall:
Using high quality leather, the shoe, either the “white” or the “burst” color scheme, feels super nice. The leather vamp offers quite outstanding support and wrapping. Not only does it protect the wearer’s feet, but also offers stability. On balance, Air Jordan International Flight has virtually everything others have: eye-catching appearance, excellent performance and above all, a reasonable price. It doesn’t fail us.