Adidas Is Changing the Way It Makes Sneakers—Again

Adidas, like most sportswear giants, loves to Innovate™. Over the past two years, the brand has introduced concept sneakers like Futurecraft 4D, which saw web-like soles constructed out of plastic through light. Adidas is also innovating on the manufacturing front with what it calls Speedfactory, an outpost located in Germany that's capable of producing sneakers at three times normal speed, thanks to what Adidas calls a "decentralized, digital, and automated creation process...with athlete-data driven design and co-creation at the core." What all that tech jargon adds up to is this: Six different sneakers made for six different cities, made fast and customized to the needs of runners in each place, releasing later this month.
In 2016, Adidas dropped 500 pairs of the Futurecraft M.F.G. (Made for Germany). The new sneaker, dubbed AM4LDN (long version: Adidas Made For London), looks almost identical to the Futurecraft M.F.G., save for some more colorful details around the upper. But we're less interested in what separates the sneakers on the outside than in how it was made to meet the needs of runners specifically in London. According to Adidas, its designers traveled to each of the six cities in the project (Paris, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Tokyo, London and New York) to meet with and study local runners. This included gathering information on their running routines (how, why, where, and when they run), and more. On a more technical level, Adidas also monitored the runners' strides with sensors and conducted gait analysis with motion capture.