Parley x adidas UltraBoost Uncaged 'Raw Grey'
Colorway: Raw Grey/Chalk Pearl/Blue Spirit · Style code: AC7590 · Release date: June 2018 · Price: $2843 · Availability: Available now
More colorways: Parley x adidas UltraBoost 4.0 (CG3673) · Parley x adidas UltraBoost Mid 'White' (DB3255) · Parley x adidas Wmns UltraBoost ST (AC8207) · Parley x adidas UltraBoost ST 'Carbon' (DB0925) · Parley x adidas UltraBoost Uncaged 'Recycled' (BB4073)
Parley for the Oceans was started in 2012 by Cyrill Gutsch, a designer who had worked for Lufthansa and BMW before a meeting with the anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson redirected him. Its approach was to turn ocean plastic into a material companies would want rather than a problem they were asked to care about.
adidas signed on in 2015. Waste plastic was reprocessed into yarn and knitted into uppers, and by December 2020 the two had put out tens of millions of pairs made with it. The partnership ran until 2024, and along the way pushed adidas to drop single-use plastic in its own offices.
The Uncaged half of the name has a separate origin: runners were cutting the plastic support cage off their UltraBoosts, so adidas built a version without one. This pair pairs that stripped-back construction with a melange Primeknit bootie spun from recycled waste, internal reinforcement and a Fitcounter heel for structure, and a flexible Stretchweb outsole finished in Continental rubber over the Boost midsole.