What if you could walk in a store, jog on a treadmill, and walk out with a pair of shoes that are custom manufactured for your feet and gait? That’s exactly what Adidas wants to do with its Futurecraft 3D project. And unlike most of the trash produced by 3D printing, the shoes look pretty awesome.

Adidas teased a prototype of the new shoes which feature a personalized 3D-printed midsole and a handsome, woven upper. For Futurecraft 3D, the company is partnering with Materialise, a Belgian company with two-and-a-half decades of additive manufacturing experience. Adidas sounds serious about turning this project into the future of running shoes, too.

“Creating a flexible, fully breathable carbon copy of the athlete’s own footprint, matching exact contours and pressure points, it will set the athlete up for the best running experience,” reads a release. “Linked with existing data sourcing and footscan technologies, it opens unique opportunities for immediate in-store fittings.”

So that’s pretty futuristic. Still, Adidas is a little late to the 3D printing shoes trend, since there are entire companies that have launched to do just that. Nike is even talking about making it possible for people to 3D-print shoes in their own homes. But there’s a chance that Adidas will be the first to offer that incredible-sounding, bespoke experience.

[Adidas]

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