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Adidas Futurecraft 3D Printed Running Sneaker
Shoes

Adidas Shows Off Running Shoe Made With 3D Printing

October 8, 2015

Adidas Futurecraft 3D Printed Running Sneaker

Adidas is no stranger to pushing the limits to finding new ways to construct their shoes. We were crazy about their Adidas x Parley sneakers revealed this summer. The upper of the sneaker was constructed from salvaged ocean garbage, including seized illegal gillnets (as incredible as the shoes were, the story of how the gillnets were acquired was stunning!). Adidas is at it again, pushing the needle of innovation in the shoe industry. The company just unveiled the Futurecraft 3D running shoe. The entire midsole (the cushiony part of the shoe between the your foot and the ground) is 3D printed. Adidas has created a way to 3D print the midsole so that the shoe is firm when standing but just squishy enough to protect your joints when running. Furthermore, the design allows for the midsole to be customized to your foot, crafted to take into account your foot shape, pressure points, and impact pattern. The company envisions that one day you will walk into an Adidas store, run on a treadmill for a few minutes, and then the perfect, custom running shoe will be instantly created for you.

While the Futurecraft 3D running shoe is currently only a prototype, Adidas believes strongly in the concept and views it is a statement of intent. According to Paul Gaudio, Adidas’ creative director, the company is focused on “driving material and process innovation, bringing the familiar into the future.” With that approach, we expect to continue to see more compelling ideas emerge from Adidas and are excited to see which of them make it to market. Additionally, it is great to see the company not only focused on innovation, but also on new technologies that help eliminate some of environmental harm the fashion industry is responsible for. Head past the break for a video that shoes the creation process:  

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by Doug Parker
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Business

Runtastic Finds A New Home With Adidas

August 6, 2015

Runastic Adidas Acquisition

It was announced yesterday that Adidas has acquired Austrian mobile fitness company Runtastic. The acquisition is valued at approximately $240 million and the company will be run as a separate entity within the sportswear giant (at least for the time being); that is great news for the app’s dedicated user base, which consists of 70 million registered users. Founded in 2009, Runtastic doesn’t always get the most attention, competing against apps from Nike and Runkeeper, but the company has been steadily increasing its stable of products over the past 6 years. The startup currently has 18 mobile apps in active development across multiple platforms. Having expanded beyond the namesake running app, Runtastic’s apps cover everything from building up your abs to helping you eat better. Runtastic has also gotten into the wearable space, recently launching Orbit, their daily fitness / sleep tracker.

Adidas currently offers their own activity tracking software, miCoach, and hardware, including smartwatches and connected soccer balls. It will be interesting to see how Adidas plans to integrate Runtastic into their already developed wearable ecosystem. $240 million is a lot to pay for overlapping products just to keep them separate; Adidas clearly has plans for Runtastic that it is not ready to share. It will be interesting to see how the company leverages the new talent and IPs. With the miCoach team and the Runtastic team there are clear redundancies and it is only a matter of time until Adidas has to make it clear what their path forward is.

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by Doug Parker
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Environment

The Incredible Chase Behind Adidas’ Gillnet Sneakers

July 29, 2015

Sea Shepherd Thunder Adidas Parley For The Oceans

Yes, we are a fashion and technology blog, but every now and then we come across a story that cannot be missed. Recently we told you about the impressive Adidas sneakers made from ocean plastics and gillnets used for illegal fishing. The sneakers were created through a partnership with Parley For The Oceans. Well it turns out Parley For The Oceans has a few partnerships of their own including one with Sea Shepherd. As governments do less and less to go after the people harming our oceans, the Sea Shepherd organization uses private money to bring them to justice, focusing on the worst offenders.

Two of Sea Shepherd’s ships were responsible for the 110 day, 10,000 nautical mile chase that produced the approximately 75km of gillnets in-part used in the Adidas sneaker. They were in pursuit of the Thunder, the most egregious out of the five most notorious illegal fishing boats in the world. Despite being banned since 2006 from deep sea fishing in regions of the globe, the Thunder has sold an estimated $76 million in illegally caught fish over the past decade. Parley, for its part, is working to find new uses for materials such as the gillnets so that there is more money to be made selling them to be repurposed than on the black market, where the nets will inevitably end up being used again.

Please do yourself a favor and read The New York Times’ account of the incredible pursuit that helped lead to the creation of the Adidas x Parley sneaker.

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by Doug Parker
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Shoes

Adidas Creates First Sneaker Made From Ocean Garbage

July 17, 2015

Adidas Parley Prototype Sneaker U.N.

Back April Adidas announced it had teamed up with Parley For The Oceans to investigate creating sneakers from recycled trash. The goal was to demonstrate that ocean debris could be transformed into a valuable material for the fashion industry. The collaboration showed off their first prototype, the Adidas x Parley sneaker, earlier this month at the U.N. General Assembly. The entire upper of the shoe is created from items found in the ocean. The shoe is constructed from ocean plastics and illegal deep-sea gillnets. In fact, when gathering materials, Parley For The Oceans spent 110 days tracking an illegal fishing vessel off of the coast of West Africa and recovered nearly 45 miles of netting. As for ocean plastic, a 2006 U.N. study estimated that there are 46,000 pieces of floating plastic for every square mile of ocean.

While the current shoe is only a prototype, it demonstrates the value that can be realized from items currently damaging our oceans. If you have your heart set on owning a piece of recycled-based footwear, hang tight; Adidas has announced that, through its partnership with Parley, it is committed to releasing a line of consumer-ready products made from ocean plastics before the end of the year. Head past the break for video of the U.N. event.  

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by Doug Parker
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