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words // Nick DePaula:
What began as a 4D-printed concept car of sorts, first unveiled earlier this year during NBA All-Star Weekend, Adidas’ newest north star product is now officially being introduced, with the unveil of the Adidas N3XT L3V3L.
A fully laceless sleekened silhouette, styled by designer Nick Daiber at the Adidas Brooklyn Farm, the shoe looks to the future of hoops, offering up a sloped primeknit upper for a snug fit, along with a sculpted “banking barrier” to provide lateral support for players at the game’s highest levels.
“Locked in, but not tied down,” Daiber proudly captioned on Instagram, as Rockets forward Gerald Green stormed down the break for a floating flush last weekend.
The shoe was born out of the Brooklyn Farm’s approach to be “daringly simple,” while also looking to push the limits of innovation in basketball. Bold, oversized Three Stripes branding shifts from the lateral side to a medial application. While early designs alluded to a multi-colored Boost cushioning setup, the model will instead debut the brand’s new responsive LightStrike foam cushioning.
“With N3XT L3V3L, we took fundamental insights to create an icon for the future that will inspire
younger generations to play,” frames Denis Dekovic, Creative Director at the Adidas Brooklyn Farm. “That emotional response from the kid is what we design for.”
Check out all of Nick Daiber’s sketches and rendering work ahead for a full look at the new Adidas N3XT L3V3L silhouette, starting from a more bare, big picture thumbnail view, to more polished computer edits featuring details like ‘Brooklyn’ badging, the Basketball category’s inaugural year in hoops, the Farm’s 11222 zip code and even the coordinates of the brand’s open source design space, some of which didn’t make it onto the final refined design.
TheN3XT L3V3L will be launching exclusively on adidas.com/basketball on December 1st for 24 hours only, before later launching in 2019.
