Invincible x adidas Futurecraft 4D 'Prism'
Colorway: White · Style code: B96613 · Release date: August 4, 2018 · Price: $3644 · Availability: Available now
The sole under this shoe is not cut, poured or pressed. It is produced by Continuous Liquid Interface Production, a process patented in 2014 and commercialised by Carbon, in which a part is drawn continuously upward out of a bath of liquid photopolymer while ultraviolet light cures it through a transparent, oxygen-permeable window. The oxygen keeps a thin film of resin uncured against the glass so the part never sticks, which is what allows the machine to run without stopping between layers. Carbon demonstrated it publicly in 2015; adidas invested in the company and used it to make the Futurecraft 4D midsole.
In 2018 that midsole was still rare enough that most people encountered it through limited collaborations rather than general release. This one went to Invincible, the Taiwanese retailer, through adidas' Consortium programme, which hands heritage and experimental models to shops for their own interpretations.
The theme is Prism, and the execution is restrained: a knit upper in white with a light spectral shift across it, so the colour reads more as a sheen than a graphic. Underneath sits the open printed lattice in its unpainted resin finish. It released on 4 August 2018 at $400.