The Air Jordan 1 High “Royal” Almost Got “Reimagined” In Patent Leather

Is the “Reimagined” series done and dusted? There is a real chance that Jordan Brand’s way to honor their legacy, yet still bring novel spins... © Sneaker News, 2026. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us The post The Air Jordan 1 High "Royal" Almost Got "Reimagined" In Patent Leather appeared first on Sneaker News. The post The Air Jordan 1 High “Royal” Almost Got “Reimagined” In Patent Leather appeared first on Sneaker News.

Is the “Reimagined” series done and dusted? There is a real chance that Jordan Brand’s way to honor their legacy, yet still bring novel spins to the fore, has concluded for the moment, as we easily could’ve seen the Air Jordan 6 “Salesman” fit the bill if marketed as such. Yet the program did bring us some bona fide hits, from the Jordan 3 “White Cement” to the Jordan 5 “Black Metallic,” to, at its very outset, the Air Jordan 1 “Patent Bred.”

Now coming to light and sharing a step that never was, an Air Jordan 1 “Royal Patent” may have been a consideration sometime in the past several years. To backtrack, the Air Jordan 1 “Bred Patent” came at an extremely hot time for the Air Jordan 1 following The Last Dance, still seen as it commands a healthy secondary market premium despite the AJ1’s decline in popularity. More critical observers might equally cite it as part of why that halcyon era came to a close as Jordan Brand took bigger swings and further broke from OGs and agreed-upon blocking.

Nonetheless, uncovering this Air Jordan 1 “Royal Patent” is noteworthy but not ultimately too shocking. There’s an easy connection to the “Satin” series, one that was far less well-received, but touched the “Bred” and “Shadow” editions in 2023 and 2024, respectively. In the inverse of this story, those shoes came in the wake of the “Satin Royal” that became an object of fascination upon release in 2017. The fact that the Jumpman would consider bridging the iconic sporty colorway into a different material overhaul is simply par for the course for what sneakerheads have come to expect.

With all that skepticism out of the way, it’s still interesting to imagine what could have been. Get a tangible sense via the images below, where the Air Jordan 1 “Patent Royal” sits alongside its actually-released sibling.