adidas UltraBoost 3.0 'Petrol Night'
Colorway: Petrol Night/Petrol Night/Mystery Petrol · Style code: S82021 · Release date: July 2017 · Price: $2832 · Availability: Available now
Boost is the reason this shoe exists. adidas did not develop the foam itself: chemists at BASF, the German chemical company, worked out how to expand thermoplastic polyurethane into small capsules and fuse them into a single block, and adidas brought the result into its running line in 2013 as an alternative to the EVA foam the industry had used for decades. The pellets stay visible in the finished midsole, which is why every Boost shoe looks as though it is standing on a bed of packed grains.
The Ultraboost put that midsole under a knit upper in 2015 and became the line's flagship. Its structure has been consistent since: a one-piece knit foot, a moulded external heel counter, and a plastic cage across the midfoot that carries the three stripes and anchors the laces. adidas has since spun the platform in several directions, including a caged-off version in 2016 and a women's-specific cut in 2017.
The 3.0 is the third pass at the original idea rather than a redesign of it. Petrol Night works entirely in a dark blue-green, running one shade through the knit and a smokier version of the same colour across the cage and heel, then setting the whole thing on a white midsole with a black rubber outsole. It released in July 2017 at $180.