Footwear Insight

much from the "leisure" side of the equation say there is interest in their performance bonafides — especially as it relates to making them as easy to wear as possible. "There's an appetite for that info and we're happy to share," says Mike Belgue, creative director for Native Shoes. The brand, which launched with EVA takes on classic athletic styles and has since branched out into knit uppers, ultrasuedes and more, has made adding – and talking up – ease-of-use features a priority. Things like lightweight materials, recycled knits, hidden goring and elastic on the tongue and stretch- able laces are designed to elevate the styles above simple basics. (The brand is also fully vegan-friendly, a big plus for some shoppers.) And for Fall '18, the brand is launching a recy- cled knit material. "We're really looking at how we can make people's lives easier and better, so they can think about other things. We're building a lot of function into the shoes so they're easy on and off," Belgue says. "As consumers become better educated, they are absolutely looking for that." German athletic brand Puma has long con- sidered the intersection of sportstyle to be its defining characteristic and historically has not shied away from technology, whether it be Netfit or Puma Disc lacing systems or evoKnit upper material, for shoes in the cat- egory. And while many technologies are born in performance and migrate to lifestyle, for Fall '18 its newest innovation, HybridFoam, will be released in both performance and sportstyle shoes. "We don't use the [word] athleisure very much. For us, sport is lifestyle," Heiko Desens, creative director for Sportstyle, tells Footwear Insight. "The active life of the nowadays consumer requires transitional products. The trend in general is going away from a total coordinated look and we see that our consumer buys items and enjoys mixing high- performance products with archive-inspired designs. Technology is a macro trend inspir- ing our design and also allows us to integrate the latest technology, function and comfort to our products." The launch of Adidas' new BYW collection shows how far that blending can go. Concepted as a lifestyle bringback of the brand's 1990s FYW (Feet You Wear) per- formance basketball franchise, BYW was designed to bring "street flair and culture back to the sport," according to Christopher Law, global senior design director for Adidas Originals. "To combine the design aesthetics from FYW with the desired technology of now in Boost technology just seemed like a winning 16 • Footwear Insight ~ May/June 2018 footwearinsight.com Jordan Standard "We're really looking at how we can make people's lives easier and better, so they can think about other things." ATHLEISURE Native AP Mercury Liteknit Puma Avid

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