Adidas NMD_R1 'United By Sneakers - Seoul'
Colorway: Cloud White/Core Black/Blue · Style code: FY1163 · Release date: May 28, 2020 · Price: $464 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas NMD_R1 'United By Sneakers - Tokyo' (FY1159) · Adidas NMD_R1 V2 'United By Sneakers - Munich' (FY1161) · Adidas NMD_R1 J 'United By Sneakers - Tokyo' (FY6628) · Adidas NMD_R1 'United By Sneakers - Los Angeles' (FY1162) · Adidas NMD_R1 V2 J 'United By Sneakers - Munich' (FY6630)
United by Sneakers is an adidas series themed around cities that have hosted the Olympic Games, and Seoul held the Summer Games in 1988. The colour logic comes straight from the South Korean flag: a white field, black bars, and the red and blue of the taegeuk at the centre. On the shoe, white knit takes the field, contrasting black lines stand in for the bars and double as the Three Stripes, and the red and blue split across the midsole.
That midsole split is the unusual part. Rather than tinting the whole Boost unit one shade, adidas divided it, so the foam changes colour partway along the length of the shoe and the two halves meet in the middle much as they do on the flag emblem. The forefoot insert is stamped with Seoul written in Hangul, the only text on the shoe specific to this release. It came out on May 28, 2020 priced at $140, ten dollars above the standard knit build of the season. A white rubber outsole runs underneath.