Air Jordan 11 Retro Low "University Blue"
Retail: $195 | Style Code: FV5104-100
Release Date: April 18th, 2026
Air Jordan 11 Retro Low "University Blue"
Carolina blue was always the color the low-top 11 was meant to wear. The Air Jordan 11 Retro Low "University Blue" returns for the first time since 2017 — and for the first time in its fully realized modern form since its original "Columbia Blue" debut in 2001 — as a spring release that arrives not because the calendar demanded it but because the colorway has spent twenty-five years proving it deserved to come back. The AJ11 Low in University Blue is the version of the shoe that gets worn in warm weather, pulled out when the outfit is already settled, and kept in the rotation long after the season that brought it has moved on.
The crisp white leather and breathable mesh upper provides the clean, light foundation that the University Blue colorway requires to operate at full effect — the white setting up the powder blue patent leather mudguard that wraps the lower half of the silhouette with the glossy, eye-catching finish that has always been the Air Jordan 11's most architecturally distinctive feature. Patent leather was Tinker Hatfield's boldest material choice for the 11, and in University Blue — a color that catches light the way Carolina sky catches it at midday — the gloss hits with the specific warmth that makes this particular colorway feel like a season rather than just a palette. The two-tone carbon fiber shank plate in black and Carolina blue runs through the midsole, visible from the side in the detail that rewards the look held long enough to find it, while the iconic icy translucent outsole grounds the build with the clarity that has made the AJ11's underfoot view as recognizable as its profile. The insole carries Nike Air branding as a nod to the shoe's 1996 origin — a small detail that separates this iteration from previous retros and connects it directly to the first chapter of the 11's story.
The Air Jordan 11 Low "University Blue" is the shoe Michael Jordan wore at Chapel Hill before any of this existed — before the signature line, before the championships, before the color became something the whole world recognized. It comes back in full-family sizing for the parent and the child who want to match up in the colorway that has always felt like spring, always felt like Carolina, and always felt like the right choice for anyone who understands that the low-top 11 in blue is one of the cleanest things Jordan Brand has ever produced.