Nike’s Air Max 1000 are almost entirely 3D-printed

Nike’s new Air Max 1000 are the company’s archetypal shoes manufactured astir wholly utilizing 3D printing. Debuting astatine ComplexCon this past play successful Las Vegas, Nike collaborated with Zellerfeld — a institution that already has expertise successful 3D printing shoes — to make the Air Max 1000, but they’re not presently disposable to the wide public.

The Air Max 1000’s plan is an updated instrumentality connected the Air Max 1, which debuted successful 1987 arsenic Nike’s archetypal footwear with an aerial cushion successful the bottommost that was disposable done a model successful the midsole. That diagnostic is carried guardant to the caller Air Max 1000, and though the aerial cushion itself isn’t 3D-printed, the remainder of the footwear uses a azygous flexible material.

By mixing layers with varying densities and textures, the outsole connected the bottommost of the Air Max 1000 remains steadfast and supportive, portion the precocious parts of the footwear are much flexible and comfortable, allowing them to beryllium slipped connected and disconnected without the request for laces.

The usage of 3D printing besides allowed Nike to recognize the Air Max 1000’s unsocial contoured design, which the institution says would person been intolerable utilizing accepted footwear manufacturing techniques. “As an innovator, what’s astir breathtaking to maine astir the Air Max 1000 are the caller solutions we tin execute with next-level manufacturing,” says John Hoke, Nike’s Chief Innovation Officer.

Nike primitively announced the Air Max 1000 successful a coagulated agleam reddish colorway, but influencers astatine the lawsuit later revealed further colors of the shoe, including orange, white, blue, and achromatic with a greenish aerial cushion. And portion Nike distributed a tiny fig of pairs of the Air Max 1000 astatine the event, wider availability was constricted to 1,000 pairs that attendees could triumph the accidental to preorder, according to Elliot Page, who besides shared a little video reappraisal of the shoes.

Nike hasn’t revealed plans for a wider wide merchandise of the Air Max 1000, nor has it revealed what the pricing mightiness be. But the 3D-printed shoes present disposable connected Zellerfeld’s website scope successful terms from $159 for a sandal plan to astir $400 for a high-top.

The Air Max 1000 aren’t the archetypal clip Nike has utilized 3D printing to marque shoes. In 2017, the institution debuted its VaporFly Elite Flyprint with a lighter and much breathable cloth worldly it claimed was the “first 3D-printed textile precocious successful show footwear.” Other companies, specified arsenic Adidas, already merchantability shoes with 3D-printed midsoles. But similar Nike, Adidas is besides experimenting with shoes made wholly from 3D-printed materials, including its caller Climacool24 that debuted successful October.