Photo: Adidas
The shoe itself has actually been at least a year in the making. It almost seemed more novelty than reality when Adidas and Parley for the Oceans came together to design shoes made from gill nets and plastic bottles last summer. Soon after, they 3-D printed another concept design (that wasn’t as cool). But now it’s a real thing, only you can’t buy them yet.
Photo: Adidas
The first 50 pairs are being given away as part of an instragram promotion from Adidas and the environmental group they collaborated with. Each pair is made from 16 plastic bottles and 13 grams of gill nets, which Parley collected in places like the Maldives, Jamaica and Granada. But the limited edition shoes themselves don’t seem to be intended as an end-all for our ocean’s plastic pollution problems. Parley used the efforts of collecting all this waste (a lot more than 50 pairs worth) to distribute the same materials to places like Parsons School of Design. The intention there is to influence and inspire the newer generations of designers to get used to working with these materials, hoping they’ll continue the practice into the future. And the social media raffle is another campaign with the same intent. They’ve simply asked followers to upload a personal video showing one single-use plastic item you will ban from your life, and viola, free fresh kicks.
Editor’s Note: Learn more about Adidas’ and Parley for the Ocean’s raffle here and here.
