Nike, robots and a ‘breathing shoe’: the future of trainers
“Sneaker Frenzy: Hot Shoe Sparks Ruckus” read a headline on the front page of the New York Post in February 2005. Sneaker freaks, that slice of society for whom a limited-edition drop is as eagerly awaited as Christmas, knew exactly which shoe had sparked unrest outside a streetwear shop on the Lower East Side. But for ordinary New Yorkers, the idea that people might queue overnight to get one of 150 pairs of Nike Dunk SB Low Staple “NYC Pigeon” shoes, with a tiny pigeon embroidered on the heel, was absurd.
Today, the shoe that sparked the “Pigeon Riot” as it’s known in sneaker circles, has commanded nearly £25,000 on resale sites. It appears alongside other cult designs in a fascinating new exhibition at London’s Design Museum titled “Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street”, which charts the functional sports shoe’s transformation into a cultural signifier. More than one billion pairs of sneakers were sold in 2020 and the market for rare trainers is soaring: in April, a pair of Nike Air Yeezy 1s worn by Kanye West sold for $1.8m at auction, triple the previous record for sneakers.
But what will shape the investment trainers of the future? “What’s interesting is that trainers didn’t change much early on,” says Ligaya Salazar, the exhibition’s curator. “Someone discovers vulcanisation [a process for hardening natural rubber into a more durable state for shoe soles], someone discovers how to bond vulcanised rubber to canvas, and there you have it, sneakers. And from the 1900s well into the 1950s and ’60s, they didn’t really look any different.”
The period since then, however, has been rich with memorable leaps in innovation, such as the introduction of Gore-Tex, a waterproof fabric, in 1979; Reebok’s Pump technology, released in 1989, with an air chamber inside a shoe enabling the wearer to create a custom fit by inflating or deflating the pump; as well as Nike Shox, launched in 2000, and which heralded a cushioning breakthrough and a memorable tagline: “the boing is back”.
And now? Possessed of hot, sweaty feet? You’ll enjoy the “Breathing Shoe”, an experiment by Puma and MIT Design Lab, a multidisciplinary research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The trainer’s upper is made from a moulded material that contains cavities filled with bacteria; responding to heat generated by the foot, the bacteria eats away at the material to create a hole that allows air to enter and circulate.
Equally cool: Nike’s first hands-free shoe, the Go FlyEase. It features a collapsible heel that allows the wearer to take the shoes on and off without using their hands. Then there is a 2019 prototype exploring better traction in wet conditions thanks to Hydro-Grip technology in the sole of a Puma shoe developed by MIT. Hydrogel modules in the sole expand on contact with water and push out rubber pins — so no more rain stopping play.
The rise of female sneakerheads — for so long overlooked by an industry that has largely stuck to the “shrink it and pink it” strategy — is also deftly acknowledged. A rare pair of silver Nike trainers with glitter soles created for the now-shuttered Paris fashion boutique Colette’s 15th anniversary stands out. But Salazar admits she struggled to include female-friendly designs: “there is a little bit more of a female creative influence [infiltrating the industry] but it’s still pretty lacking.”
Nevertheless, things are changing. StockX, the Michigan-based website for verified sneaker resale that has supported the exhibition, predicts its female userbase, which grew by more than 100 per cent in 2020, will continue to boom; it now sells more women’s sneakers every four hours than it did in all of 2016 combined.
The search for sustainability is also set to inform the trainers of the future. Witness the robot used to weave the uppers on Adidas’s Futurecraft Strung shoes that can be made to the exact specification of athletes, reducing waste and making them super light, available at the end of 2021. The German company’s Stan Smith design now comes in Mylo, a leather alternative grown from mycelium. Salazar insists, though, that waste is the biggest environmental problem. “For me, the future is an on-demand model. The fact is that we are producing billions of shoes a year, of which only a proportion gets bought.”
Enter Keilan Kogut, a charismatic young Leeds United fan who runs Adikoggz, a trainer restoration and customisation service, from his home in Pudsey. The show includes a video of him scrubbing tired canvas over his kitchen sink, repainting edges, restoring suede. He started the business when he noticed his dad was buying new trainers to wear to football matches, ruining them and then binning them. “If I can restore nine pairs of shoes just in my house, that’s nine less pairs of shoes going into landfill,” he says.
Video: How sneaker fans are cashing in on the $2bn resale market for limited edition trainers
‘Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street’ is at the Design Museum in London from May 18-October 24
Data visualisation by Chris Campbell
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