Originally, Nike came up with laser technology for the sake of performance, to cut out a few inessential parts of running shoes and shave a few extra micrograms of mass in the process. Now they’ve deployed this innovation on the new Air Jordan XX’s “lace cover,” which is coated in doodles of swooshes, Jumpmen, and wild tribal swirlimagigs of the sort you may have seen gracing fraternity biceps and second-rate energy drinks. “A history lesson in a shoe,” is what Nike calls it. We call it hiding the cake underneath too much icing. Nike is supposed to be selling shoes that get the job done, or at least the idea of shoes that get the job done, and all these ornaments freak us out. The buyer should be allowed to doodle on his own shoes to suit his own personal Jordan symbolism, if he wishes. Shoes with pre-made Jordan doodles are as creepy as fighter jets that come with angry fire-breathing sharks painted on the fuselage. Leave that to the soldiers.

History is Ugly