Like our girl Greta Thunberg, our generation’s anxiety towards climate change is palpable. The world can go in the shitter any minute. Nowadays, our climate is more unstable and unpredictable. Anything goes—and we can’t afford to be oblivious about it.
That’s why the folks from Nike are taking a stand. In their new Space Hippie collection, they raise the bar for sustainable design by making kicks out of scrap materials.
“Space Hippie product presents itself as an artifact from the future. It’s avant-garde; it’s rebelliously optimistic,” says John Hoke, Nike Chief Design Officer in their press statement. “[It] is also an idea. It is about figuring out how to make the most with the least material, the least energy and the least carbon.”
Nike wants to turn trash into something beautiful and functional. In their footwear collection, they used space waste yarn made out of recycled plastic water bottles, T-shirts and yarn scraps, factory scraps for its foam, and crater foam from the brand’s used standard foams. It serves its purpose of embracing reduce, reuse, recycle to a tee, but it doesn’t stray from the brand’s visual language.
Silhouettes under Space Hippie are living up to the collections name. In this collection, the four footwear designs have futuristic structures, while their materials are free of shine and chrome. The materials used gravitates toward earth tones with a tinge of swoosh orange. Whether or not you vibe with the designs, this initiative by the global brand brings forth the future of sustainable kicks.
“It tackles a big, complex issue with soft grace. Like a barrier-breaking run, the innovation should provide us all a healthy dose of inspiration,” their press statement reads. They also end their statement by saying this isn’t only a step towards footwear’s future, but also a call-to-action for designers to do their part in fighting climate change. “Space Hippie embodies the idea that designers have a right and responsibility in problem-solving.”
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Nike is still a long way from overhauling its entire production to shift towards sustainable practice completely. Still, this initiative personally gives me hope. With fashion houses dropping new collections by the minute, the industry is not as green as we want it to be. But imagine if every designer embraces the Space Hippie mantra.
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Maybe, just maybe, we’ll see more designers out there making a positive environmental impact.
Photo from Nike