We first heard about Nike's plans to really, truly make the self-lacing trainers from Back to the Future Part II a reality back in March, after the concept was first teased in October 2015. A prototype of the futuristic kicks were unveiled at Nike's Innovation For Every Body conference in NYC. Dubbed the HyperAdapt 1.0, the shoes were slated to become available sometime in 2016; now, we finally have a drop date.
The shoes will arrive in specific Nike stores in the U.S. on November 28 (UK release TBD). Nike's PR director, Heidi Burgett, tweeted about the eagerly anticipated drop this week. But you can't just waltz in to get your own Marty McFly-worthy kicks, alas: You'll need an appointment to "experience" and/or actually try out a pair.
As for the price? That's still TBD, but we're expecting something more exorbitant than most of the brand's kicks. Your Flyknits and Dunks aren't tricked out (yet) with sophisticated technology that tightens the shoes around the foot until tension is sensed, using an algorithmic pressure equation, after all. We're guessing those appointments to take the futurist shoes for a stroll around the story (or home, if you're so inclined) will fill up fast...
This story was originally published on March 16, 2016.
Self-lacing shoes, as we've been fantasizing about since Back to the Future II came out in 1989, are legitimately about to happen. They don't look exactly as they did in the flick, but they're an IRL iteration of the fantasy kicks. At today's Nike Innovation for Every Body conference in NYC, the athletic powerhouse's CEO, Mark Parker, unveiled the Hyperadapt 1.0 (along with a couple of other product launches).
Nike first teased this technology in October of last year (appropriately, on Back to the Future Day). The just-revealed Hyperadapt shoes are "a custom, personalized experience, and it's one of the most amazing [shoe] experiences to date," explained Tiffany Beers, who works in innovation and product development at Nike. Want to get your hands on a pair? You'll have to wait until the holidays, when the sneakers will become available exclusively to Nike+ members.
"There's nothing more personal than something that communicates with your body, and changes when you change. A product that, [on] its own, comes alive," Parker said. "It's the first step in the future of adaptive performance."
So how do they work, exactly? "There are a two buttons — plus and minus. You hit plus to tighten... You don't have to adjust after that," Beers says.
Check out some demos of the straight-from-the-future sneaks, below.
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