adidas UltraBoost 'Metallic Gold'
Colorway: Core Black/Gold Metallic/Grey · Style code: EG8102 · Release date: November 12, 2019 · Price: $172 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Adidas UltraBoost 20 'Gold Metallic' (EG1343) · Adidas UltraBoost 20 'Gold Metallic' (FY3448) · adidas UltraBoost 'White Gold Metallic' (FZ4909) · Adidas UltraBoost J 'Metallic Gold' (EH0348) · adidas UltraBoost 20 'Gold Metallic' (EE4393)
Metallic finishes behave differently from ordinary colour: they change with the angle of the light rather than staying fixed, which is why a small amount of gold reads louder than a large block of any flat tone. Here it lands against Core Black across the knit upper, with grey shading the middle ground. The effect is closer to jewellery than to sportswear, and the shoe was clearly built for an evening rather than for a run.
The structure is unchanged from a standard UltraBoost of the period: a knitted upper, a midfoot cage laced into the eyestay to lock the arch, and a full-length Boost midsole of thermoplastic polyurethane pellets fused under steam. It went on sale November 12, 2019 at $200, twenty dollars above the base tier, a premium the metallic treatment carried. Black and gold is one of the few combinations adidas returns to on this line year after year.