The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 110 — Let's talk about the future of Adapt
These prices just keep rising.
Good morning, family! Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear! Thanks so much for rocking with me on this amazing Monday. We’ve got a fantastic week ahead of us, folks!
Don’t forget to tell your people to subscribe if they haven’t already! Giveaway soon come, fam!
Alright, let’s do it.
Adapting to the Adapt
(Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash)
The Air Jordan 11 Adapt’s reveal from last week is just the latest glimpse at the future of Nike’s Adapt technology and, really, the future of footwear.
And to be honest, it has me worried a bit. Seeing Nike’s auto-lacing technology attached to such a classic silhouette was cool, but it immediately planted some issues in my mind when thinking about Adapt’s future.
Adapt tech has had quite a journey.
It started as this sort of a satirical gimmick in Back to the Future — a movie with flying cars in it. In 2016, that gimmick became a reality with the Nike’s HyperAdapt 1.0, which was a shoe originally built for performance.
Three years later in 2019, it evolved into the Nike Adapt BB 1.0. 2020 brought us the 2.0 and Nike continued to champion the line as the future of footwear.
That’s where my worry comes in. Since the launch of the Adapt BB 2.0, we’ve only seen Adapt tech come in two more silhouettes: The Air Max line’s Nike Adapt Auto Max and, now, the Jordan 11.
This was something that started off as tech meant to advance functionality and athletics. Adapt was supposed to drastically change footwear for athletes. Truth is it hasn’t really done that. You rarely see players hooping in the Adapt BB series these days and the HyperAdapt is more a collectors item than anything.
So now we see this tech shifting into casual footwear. This was always going to happen at some point. But the thing is none of these models are below $350.
Both the Adapt BB and Adapt BB 2.0 are $350. The HyperAdapt retailed at $750 and is still a rarity these days.
The Adapt Auto Max was a whopping $400. That Jordan? You can bet it’ll be in that $500 ballpark — probably more.
This feels like a slippery slope here. Adapt tech could one day change the way footwear looks and functions both in sports and in real life. And that would be great. But will every option be unaffordable for common folks?
If this is what footwear’s future is going to look like, this shoe has to be made more accessible at some point. We haven’t quite seen that yet and the bar is being set as we speak. With the way things are looking, we probably won’t see that anytime soon.
And, look, this is tech. So it’s never going to be cheap. That’s just the reality of it. But we could be creating a situation where we’re playing another game of the haves and the have-nots with sneakers.
And that, my friends, would stink.
CNCPTS is all about the manual W
(Photo by Alison Marras on Unsplash)
Concepts gave resellers absolute fits on Saturday with their TurDUNKen SB Dunk drop.
The sneaker boutique has a big history with the Dunk. They’ve dropped a bunch of special edition SB’s over the years — the Lobster, the Stained Glass joints, the Ugly Christmas Sweater joints. The list goes on and the TurDUNKen is the latest addition.
So, of course, resellers were circling these like vultures. And it came in a special box, too, bumping that price up drastically.
Despite all that hype lots of W’s came through on Saturday. And it was mostly people who were buying these shoes manually (aka without a bot). It was thanks to the strategy Concepts used for the drop.
Concepts created a separate webpage built specifically for this drop instead of hosting it on their original site where monitors would detect the release instantly.
That’s extremely hard to bot. There was no way to predict that, and so when they did finally drop the link users were able to go in manually and just cop.
Yeah, that’s a lot. Creating a new site for one drop is a big measure. But those are the precautions needed today to get sneakers into the actual hands of fans. It’s exactly the kind of care that you love to see as a consumer and exactly the type of thing that just continuously brings you back to this kind of small business.
So, yeah, big ups to Concepts for giving lots of folks a big W this weekend.
Making the sneaker game more woman friendly
The sneaker industry doesn’t serve women nearly as well as it should. Period.
But it’s not enough to just say that. It’s not enough to just acknowledge it. There are ways to fix it that the industry needs to act on.
This piece from Vogue’s Jessica Lawrence clearly states those problems — and fixes them. She explains how it’s not just sizing issues — it’s the overall tone the industry takes with women.
Take the Nike Dunk’s current campaign, for example, Lawrence writes.
“Aside from the sizing of high-profile releases, even when campaigns are specifically created with women in mind, many argue that they feel half-hearted. The recent women’s Nike Dunk Disrupt was met with some criticism over the chunky nature of the design, which differed from the classic and highly popular silhouettes of the Nike Dunk and Nike SB Dunk. [Titi] Finlay [of Laced] questions why women are given the chunky version of what is an ‘already great silhouette. Why can’t we have more Dunks in inclusive size runs and colourways?’,”
She’s exactly right. There are more nuggets as brilliant and eloquently written as that one laid out in the piece. Well worth 15 minutes of your time today.
Come win this PS5
Big shouts to the homies at Want Not Need Fund, who just officially became an official non-profit organization.
To celebrate, they’re giving away a PS5. Yes, forreal.
All you gotta do is donate $20, fam. Go ahead and jump in on this. After that L y’all took last week? This is the hope you need. Get on it.
What’s droppin, bruh?
Nike Dunk Low “Ceramic” — Thursday, November 19
Nike Air Max 1 “Magma Orange” — Thursday, November 19
Adidas Ivy Park x Ultra Boost “Core Black” — Thursday, November 19
Hot Ones x Reebok Classic Leather “MEDIUM” — Thursday, November 19
Nike SB Dunk High “Turdunken” (SNKRS drop) — Saturday, November 21
That’s a wrap for your boy! Y’all are the absolute best. Thank you for your time today. Hope you have a fantastic week, family. Be blessed.
Don’t forget! Get your subscriptions in!
As always, peace and love. Be easy. Be well. Be kind.
Signing off.
—Sykes 💯