Behind the design of adidas Originals’ new NMD sneaker

31 January 2016 - 21:06 By Matthew McClure

Matthew McClure sat down with Nic Galway, adidas vice-president of global design, to find out more about adidas Originals’ much-anticipated new sneaker, the NMD I was lucky enough to meet Nic Galway, the vice- president of global design for adidas Originals, the day after the NMD shoe was unveiled at the historic 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue on a chilly New York winter evening. Naturally, the sneaker was the star of the event and the room was abuzz with bloggers and influencers, who flooded social media with images of the trainer, pegged as the ideal vehicle for urban exploration.Why did you incorporate performance technology into the NMD? Is it inspired by your own interest in fitness?Sure. One of the reasons I came to the brand was because I love sport. When I joined I was a serious rock climber and worked with small rock-climbing companies making harnesses and stuff like that. Although I studied more as a transport designer, I love sewing and making. I wasn't thinking about fashion at all and suddenly found this path to where I am today.story_article_left1What makes the NMD unique?If you look at a fashion shoe, sure, a fashion brand can make a shoe that looks like the NMD, but I don't think a fashion brand could make a shoe that performs like the NMD. I think that's what makes us relevant in sport and beyond.What's interesting is that fashion brands will use popular culture icons as a stamp of authenticity, like an endorsement ...That's a very interesting word for me, because I'm very interested in collaboration, I'm not really interested in endorsement. Collaboration, when you do it properly, means you make something that you couldn't have made separately, whereas endorsements you pay for.In the past, there's been fanfare around the launch of, say, the Tubular, with partnerships with popular culture icons, but there was none of that for the NMD launch. Why so different this time around?We definitely talked about that. When you look at the family around us at adidas, we work with Pharrell Williams, we work with Kanye West. I don't look at them as celebrities or musicians, I look at them as visionaries. I'm interested in their thoughts and how they see us evolving. We could have got an act in, but we just didn't think that we needed to. We believe we have a great product and there's a really great community who are interested in what we're doing right now and we wanted to do something different. We're very happy with how it turned out...

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