adidas Prime Olympics

• MODEL: ADIDAS PRIME OLYMPICS
• MADE IN: GERMANY
• MADE ON: --/13
• ART.NO: Q21791
• FACTORY: SEF 502001

Part of the adizero family, these digitally woven, one-piece runners take technology to the next level in order to bring dead-weight back down to earth.

The new slogan from adidas Performance for this pair is ‘all you need, nothing more’, and while that’s catchy, I find this other bit of information far more inspiring: they’re made in Germany. Damn right. First spotlit pair (that I know of) since the ‘Made for Berlin’ ZX 9000 back in 2011. And to me, that’s something quite special, but for the rest who couldn’t care less about birthplace, these shoes are all about their material and make.

Known as Primeknit, the idea behind the upper is to create an incredibly lightweight one-piece without losing durability. This is done through a continuous knitting process, during which levels of flexibility can be minutely adjusted to precisely change how the shoe moves with your foot.

One might not believe these could hold up, seeing as how they’re basically just yarn, but their durability and willpower are delivered in the form of fused threads as well as complex grid patterns. This final feature produces an artifact of great ventilation and ultimately delivers a quite uniquely-designed running shoe.

After one gets over the idea of the new construction and material approach, it becomes the fit and feel that could most likely be the shoe’s true claim to fame. Dropping in a variety of colorways including ‘electric’ green, ‘prime’ blue, ‘prime’ green (pictured here), and a special London red, the nearly 200 EUR price tag (165 from what we’ve heard, to be exact) is definitely raising eyebrows as to whether or not these are worth the effort. However, as adi Dassler himself once was an innovator in athletic equipment, his company will push on as innovators in the sportswear scene, and with this motivation we’re sure that only good intentions were meant with the adidas Originals Prime Olympics.

written by Dylan Cromwell

photography by errol