New textile technology turns data into performance material
Adidas has produced a concept shoe to demonstrate the brand’s latest development: textile technology that can turn athlete data into a performance material.
Futurecraft.Strung combines Adidas 4D and Strung high-res technologies; each thread of the uppers was individually selected and data-mapped with the aim of helping runners hit a 5m/sec pace. The development is taking place under the brand’s Futurecraft platform, an “incubator for innovation and technologies”.
“We started to think about how we could make a machine that would do this type of thread ‘winding’ by hand, how to integrate athlete data, and how to build software to create, simulate, analyse and test Strung uppers,” according to the company. After two years of internal development, the company began collaborating with digital design studio Kram/Weisshaar.
Adidas calls Strung a milestone with the potential to transform how athletes work with designers, engineers and sports scientists. Though it is beginning with running, the company expects to eventually apply the technology to other sports.
“We want this to be the most data-informed textile, based on foot anatomy and athlete movement,” the company said. The first shoe should be available late 2021 or early 2022. “Technology can achieve wonderful things, but it can only achieve the right things if it’s informed by human behaviour.”
Image: The Adidas Futurecraft.Strung robot.
