adidas NMD_R1 'Watercolor'
Colorway: Cloud White/Wild Teal/Acid Mint · Style code: GX5372 · Release date: May 2, 2021 · Price: $138 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas NMD_R1 Big Kid 'Watercolor' (GX5402)
Watercolour prints behave differently from camouflage or graphic repeats: the colour has no hard boundary, so it pools and fades across the surface instead of forming shapes. On a Cloud White textile upper that reads as staining rather than decoration, and the effect changes across the shoe because no two areas of the wash carry the same density.
Wild Teal and Acid Mint are the two colours in the wash, one deeper and blue-leaning, the other pale and green, and where they overlap the upper picks up a third tone adidas never had to specify. Everything else is left plain so the print has room: white Boost running the full length, tonal inserts moulded into the foam sidewall, welded Three Stripes and a sock-like collar. It released May 2, 2021 at $140, ten dollars over the plain textile pairs of that spring. A white outsole sits beneath.