We went back to 1989 this past Wednesday with the all the Back to the Future craze. When BTF II dropped in ‘89, the characters time travel to October 21, 2015 and the world was given a glimpse of the "future." Moviegoers loved the shoes that time-traveling hero Marty McFly wore when he was wildin' out on a hoverboarding in Hill Valley.
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These futurist sneaks were nicknamed the 'Nike MAG.' The world has been waiting 26 years to get the real thing.
The film’s version of our real-life Wednesday had some hits and misses. For example, there’s a couple versions of the hoverboard out there right now, truth be told they’re not as cool as the one in the movie. Also, the Cubs definitely did not win the Pennant this year.
There’s the whole style thing. Paris fashion week maybe? Someone would wear this fit.
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Of course, the thing that everyone was anticipating was the Nikes. You’ve probably seen pictures of these sneakers before. Every couple of years, there was rumor that Nike would release a pair of the self-lacing, hoverboard ready, future high tops.
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The shoes themselves were pretty fire. If the 80's were all about he high-top Nikes, ("Terminators," Air J1's, etc), these were the highest things out. The light up midsole were really cool too. But the thing that made these Nikes so special, so futurist, was the self-lacing capability. This idea seemed so far away, and 1989's version of 2015 was purely science fiction.
In 2011, Nike actually created a version of the Mag for a live auction that would benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation. These sneakers actually lit up, much like the MAGs in the film, but they didn't have the self-lacing capability.
(Source: Nike.com)
It seemed like that was it. Nike dropped the "real" thing and a couple of rappers and Brian Wilson's beard were the only ones who got it.
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If some from the 1980's was to come to our time and saw this dude, that would probably be a pretty good representation of 'the future.'
But this Wednesday, Nike came in clutch with not only another drop of the MAG, but a pair with actual self-lacing capability. They officially released the Nike MAG 2015. What a time to be alive.
(Source: Nike.com)
While people had been putting out MAG-inspired custom sneakers for a minute now, after 2011’s drop people could actually customize the MAG itself. For instance, Mache, one the world’s top custom sneaker (and Angelus Sponsored) artist dropped these custom MAGs.
(Source: @mache275)
Mache did these with one of the 2011 models for Pelican’s baller Anthony Davis in celebration of #backtothefutureday.
Now that there’s a real life version of the Nike MAG, people are going to have to step up their custom game. The world wants to see a pair of customs with self lacing sneakers, so who’s going to be the first to make them?
To recap the week, Wednesday was Air MAG Day over at the @angelusdirect Instagram page (follow us if you don’t already). We gave away a kit that had all the paints needed for your own MAG-inspired customs.
For those of you who weren’t picked, you can still find all the acrylic leather paint colors on the Angelus website, the shoelaces at the Lace Lab site to create your custom MAGs. The Nikes will have to be your own though, maybe some Foamposites? We've got some premium laces just for that too.
If you missed the #backtothefutureday jump off this time around, go back in time. Like our motto goes, create what you can’t have.