Hello all,
I have been thinking a lot lately about the cost of kicks and the quality and originality of the design of the shoe. If any of you readers follow me on twitter you have probably seen my rants on a few of Nike’s newest shoe releases. Here is why! I love Nike, no doubt about that and they make up 95% of my sneaker collection. Nike has always been a big leader in innovation ever since the creation of the AIR. However, I have noticed recently that the new releases of shoes that are being released from Nike are the same shoe they made years ago with a slightly altered “ego”. Recently, for anyone who does not follow Nike, they developed a new shoe design called hyperfuse. 
This new technology makes for a lighter more breathable shoe and does away with a lot of extra material associated with the traditional sneaker. Nicekicks.com explains Hyperfuse in this way, “Hyperfuse “fuses” its distinct layers into a composite using a unique manufacturing method. Hyperfuse eliminates the need to manually stitch together footwear materials, and provides engineered zones of performance with a level of precision never possible with traditional cut-and-sew construction.” I commend Nike for this design because it is very modern and fresh look. Unfortunately they have taken this technology and tried to integrate it into classics and newer models of recent releases.
This takes me back to an old post where I talked about originality for the first time. In that post I commented on the combination’s Nike was doing with the Air Force One and Air Jordan. This of course was not the only thing I noticed in their shoes. After the Fusions, came the 360º AIR technology. This innovation was where Nike took the AIR bag and extended it across the whole bottom of a shoe. It was first seen on Lebron’s 7th Signature shoe. What Nike did shortly thereafter was but this 360º AIR on various classics like the Air Max 97 to create a new shoe called the Air Max 24/7. As you see below I have shown two of the current lines Nike has that have incorporated the Hyperfuse tech. 
Am I saying it is a bad idea? No, but I feel like it is a cheap way to make money. This technique they use I compare to a remaking of an old movie. It is someone else taking an original idea and tweaking it with new technology to make it their own. Does it give it a new attitude or feeling? Yes, but you still see the undertone.
At the end of the day I have to stop and ask myself am I viewing this through the eyes of a consumer or through the eyes of an artist. As a consumer, like I said earlier, it is an easy way to make money off of old ideas. But through an artist eyes I would call this legitimate design.
I think a quote like this is very good for these types of situations. “Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.”- Aaron Russell.
