You Couldn't Make AIREI's Mud-Dyed ASICS In a Factory
ASICS and AIREI ccreated a special GEL-Kinetic Fluent sneaker from the (literal) grounds up. With each shoe individually hand-stitched and mud-dyed, no two pairs are alike.
Every one of these sneakers is marked by serial code and one-of-a-kind identity number. Even the packaging is a feat of bespoke artisanship: The boxes are lined with Japanese kozo paper, the shoes within are wrapped in heat-stamped, coffee-hued khadi cotton bags, a signature AIREI material handwoven in India.
“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?" asks the insole of the shoe, quoting the Tao Te Ching, an ancient Chinese text of Taoist philosophy. Further alluding to this tension of fast and slow, dirty and clean, mass and rare, the shreds of thread that idly dangle off the shoe's exterior contrast its futuristic form.
Exclusively available as a raffle in Shanghai, ASICS and AIREI's fourth collaboration is as much a matter of footwear design as it is a careful creation of footwear art.
There's no denying it'd take the slow-churned creative sensibilities of AIREI and the grandeur of a company like ASICS to actually conceive of a project that so skillfully integrates the aforementioned idiosyncrasies into something as familiar as the GEL-Kinectic Fluent. The end product couldn't be less factory-made and yet they wear the form of the quintessential mass-market shoe, something few sportswear companies of this scale could or would achieve.
Despite this newly earthy, naturalistic air, however, these kicks haven't sacrificed any of the latter's high-tech attributes, remaining as sturdy and comfortably cushioned as any other state-of-the-art ASICS model.
Complete with a campaign and making-of material that echo its appearance's folksy spirit, AIREI and ASICS' joint sneaker is a welcome act of resistance against the constant conveyor-belting of ultimately indistinguishable stuff. And opposite ASICS' generally more left-field approach to trends of late, these are developments one cannot help but wish to see the brand unearth more often.
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