The year was 1989, and Tinker Hatfield was back at his tricks storming up an idea for the Air Jordan 4. How would he top the Air Jordan III? Tinker wanted to get further into performance, rather than some other inspiration that was used on the last three models.

The Air Jordan IV was the first in the line that had an over-molded mesh. The reason for this is, the consumer would think the shoe was made cheap. So what Tinker did was dip the mesh in a soft plastic and blew air through it to clear out the plastic in between.