What are those blades you strapped to your feet?

A long long time ago when I was much younger, I use to design trainers on paper in my bedroom. One of the things I drew many many decades ago was a trainer with empty soles. Idea being that the underlying structure was so strong it would hold up without it. Now this is slightly crazy talk but this is the time when the Nike Air 180’s had just come out (1991?) and kids were getting mugged for their Reebok Pumps (at least in Bristol they were).

To be fair I remember them looking more like the Adidas bounce’s (which I owned a while ago and the A3’s before that) but I think the Spring blades are very much in the same vein.

I like the fact were moving away from the classic trainer look again. Dare I say it,

…classic trainers are the skeuomorphism of the digital world. Let them die please!

There was a period of time recently when I couldn’t go into popular trainer shops without shaking my head and a little sigh of contempt for the shockingly boring line up of trainers. Thank goodness someone is trying something new. Even my Adidas ZX Flux (the socks as they have been known as) are quite different (although you could say Nike Presto’s done this 10+ years before)

My new trainers… Love them.https://t.co/5C56LhMwoS

— Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden) November 15, 2015

I was reminded of this all, by the reaction I got to my trainers recently and the blog I just wrote about thinking digital manchester.

Interesting the effect of uniqueness. I recently had a lot of comments about my latest trainers (Adidas Spring blades).