I work in marketing, so if there’s one thing I know, it’s that words have influence; and reviews {like most things} are subjective, can be extremely tainted with bias, and strangled by constraints held by brands, platforms, etc. As someone who has definitely left 5 star reviews on books I ain’t even read to support people I know – I take reviews with a grain of salt. For these reasons, and because the Internet is fucking weird, I choose not to write them either. But I do love to talk about my sneakers, and at this point, everyone in this house is really sick of listening to me.
With that said – this is not a review of the Jordan 1 Retro High OG in the Dark Marina Blue colorway.
I’m sorry, or you’re welcome.
Released February 16th 2022
Early photos of these circulated to a rousing chorus of color comparisons to the much revered Royal 1s. Against the product photo standard all white background, I didn’t quite see how that particular comparison was being made. Through my own lens though, I can better see the similarity. Dark marina blue is like… if cerulean and teal had a baby?
It’s not royal blue.
The colorblocking is identical to the Shadow 2.0 and Pollen 1s we saw last year. The leather is leather, the silhouette is the silhouette. Though I felt drawn to the color, they weren’t groundbreaking and I was okay with passing on them.
Especially since:
1: SNKRS hates me, and I wasn’t going into battle elsewhere for them
2: A pair I was willing to go into battle for released around the same date, and as a broke bitch it was one or the other
So how the fuck did they get here?
It’s actually not an interesting story.
Back in January, I was tuning in to Sample Size, my favorite Twitter Spaces, when someone mentioned the Sole Retriever app which I’d been curious about, and I decided to sign up and try it out {going back to “words have influence”}. One thing about me is if I have to “invite or tag friends” to bypass a waitlist, or enter a giveaway, I’m not doing it, so I waited in the queue to gain access to the app for about two weeks before finally checking it out.
As the release date for the sneakers I was ready to throw hands over got closer, I popped into it to see if I could find any raffles or solid release information on them. I struck out there but saw a bunch of raffles for the marina blue, picked one, and entered it to get a feel for the process. {I can talk more about the Sole Retriever app in another not review later.}
Given how frequently I lose raffles, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed when I didn’t get this pair, and going for grade school wouldn’t break the bank on the nearly impossible off chance that I did win.
sigh
I’m not disappointed that these were my first pick up of the year, however accidentally on purpose it happened, the color is beautiful. I just wish there was more to write about than that – but it’s a classic Jordan style done several times over, and the blue isn’t new either. The colorblocking {also not new} in this silhouette does hit, but there’s nothing spectacularly notable otherwise.
Oh. They come with three sets of laces. That’s nice.
blk grrl kicks 