hey yo,
will they be diggin up your shoes in 2000 years !
very cool-not sure where they’d be dig’n mine up from??/
maybe off my feet-always wear’n kicks**
*wierd thought
… boy looks like it would be harsh on the first metatarsal head and where is the lateral support … 
sorry, bad shoe humor. nice find. It is an interesting thought, what would people think of the things we design years from now? Especially in the light of the current, albiet fading, retro craze. We went from cars inspired by old cars, to 30 year old shoes re-manufactured as is whith NO improvements based on all of our learnings in ergonomics, materials, and manufacturing processes and now shoes heavily inspired by classic shoe aesthetics, but re-engineered and designed for today. 50 years from now will the re-reissue the dunk, or the AF-1 in limited colorways??
that was a really bad joke,…but not really,…have you worn converse All stars lately? ZERO lateral support,…
that retro craze has been predicted to fade for the last six seasons,…For example I’ll remind you of the time we met (that line review where we got yelled at for talking too loud in the back?) well I remember a certain Austrailian PLM agreeing with a descision not to release more retro stuff because it would be “ded 'an buh-ried by 'oliday 04…”
I’ll put it simply: the retro craze is just hitting the Upper midwest as we speak. so you can bet that over 1/2 of the US is just starting to “get” that retro craze; thus allowing Active Life to keep treading water as a category. (you know the word “Fashion”… unfortunatley saying it a line presentation is almost as bad as saying “Adidas!” or yelling “fire” in a packed theater)
I think people will still be able to wear the stuff put out today in fifty years, even after its been sitting in a land fill for 1/2 a century; it wont degrade–unless Nike whishes to repave most of the Northwest with recycled phylon and rubber roadways,…) Where will the trends be then? hopefully not caught in the temporal loop we have been suck into for the past few years.
I like to think wee are in the back end, reinvestigation stage of the loop: deconstruction if you will. Repackaging new tech into safe and comfortably accesible styling.
Then someone will take a risk when a new piece of technology is unveiled to the world at large that shifts paradigms from this intropective retrovertigo to a “newer” future.
Nike will then throw a shoe on some hyper marketed foot and POW! the tech driven front side of the loop kicks in. Tech and ergonomics becomes the fashion again. Books are put out celebrating the new style; kids rush to Alife or Undefeated to grab their own custom versions (Nike will then creates a new SMU team to replace Active Life that caters to these sneaker freak lifestyle retailers. this will generate more income than Active Life did. M. Clarke will extoll in the 200x Nike report : “look to the Custom Kicks SMU team–thats where the growth will come from” )…Meaning that the the change doesn’t come from the function of the shoe, it will come from how its sold and to whom.
yep that about sums it up. The question tho’ is where will we all be then? Because the most amazing thing to me about that 2000 year old shoe is not much has really changed in shoe manufacture in two millenia. The basics are all there. We still use laces, we still use leather and its still stiched together with an upper and a sole.
Relativ, you are speaking to fashion trend, which of couse has its natural cultural cycles. By retro fade, that is exactly what I mean, it is hitting middle America, sure to kill the cool in the best of trends within 18 months…mate 
But perhaps the shoe hasn’t changed a lot in 2000 years because the foot hasn’t changed a lot in that period either.
Probably the biggest thing in footwear lately, from a functional standpoint, is Nike Free. It doesn’t look that much different than a normal shoe, but the way it is designed and constructed allows your foot to use its natural motion (in case you are wondering most shoes actually work agaist your foot’s natural mechanics due to being made the way shoes have always been made, but the human body has a way of adapting as best it can to the given situation be it high heels or chuck taylors). In short, the Free products are much more ergonomic than other shoes. Props to Eric Avar, Jay Mechster, and the rest of the advanced design team who took the time to really study feet… pweew, stinky.
yeah mate, the “Early adopters” who still use fashion to determine what they will be adopting early.
But the real money to be made is on the backside of those fashionable trends…so what ever way you cut it someones’ fashion trends is someone else’s fiscal trend.
Nike Free is awesome. I got my hands on pair of the trainers back in September from “someone” who got an “extra” pair. top down is a little wide and marshmellow-y and the pattern pieces are kinda funky but its a damn comfortable shoe. i’m awaiting my nikeID order…
Interesting contrast between the Adidas One and Nike Free. Adidas has the technoiogy to use a mechanism to mechanically drive the foot to increase the performance of the user. while Nike has the technology use materials and flex areas to let the foot drive the performce of the user. One drives the foot, Free the foot drives.
Free is not a new idea but an excellent application of that idea in a completely needful way. Someone speculated once that planar fascitis, shin splints and rolled anlkes was the result of humanity wearing inflexible shoes for so long that the planar ligament deformed and the ankle and arch lost strength and in some cases became too brittle. It would be interesting to note how much footwear (and other clothings) effected human evolution both positevely and negatively. namely did our drive for protection/performance and fashion determine who we are today? Or are those factors determined by who we are today?
hmm I smell a master thesis brewing,…
oh BTW that was me earlier,…sorry I was drunk,…