crooked tongues magazine News Features

Regardless of how referential they are, we're big fans of new models, and as we enter a fresh decade they're even more vital to sustain our continued interest. The Fortitude Mid had our interest from the offset with an oddball mix of contemporary basketball, a touch of offroad and even some classic runner shape in the mix. Best of all, they appeared with little fanfare or promotional guff. You've got to love the element of surprise, and these comfortable, lightweight creations are an excellent day-to-day wear. We've got a few in the store for pre-order (though sadly, the brown/light blues were cancelled today) with more set to drop in the coming months, and the samples had the attention of those in-the-know around the time of the Crooked BBQ last Summer. This year we're looking to work more Q&As with designers into the News section, so to start as we mean to go on, we got Elizabeth Yoon, Senior Designer at adidas Originals, and the mind behind the Fortitude Mid to talk us through the shoe...

What was the design brief for the Fortitude? It's interesting to see Originals putting out new silhouettes.

The intent of the design brief for the Fortitude was to create a new silhouette combining trail and running with modern twists. The key point was to communicate these two technical sports in a modern lifestyle language with freshness, but not to lose the adidas original heritage.

To our untrained eyes, this looks like an unreleased piece from the archives with a little bit of '90s trail and a bit of basketball in the mix.

That is correct. We were looking at a lot of adidas shoes from the 90's. Adidas has a long history and such a rich heritage that it's important to have our current designs reflect this. If we had to pinpoint certain models among others, they would be the outdoor shoe Monbasa Stiefel, the basketball shoe Phantom, and the technical running shoes such as the Tech Super for the EVA midsole.

The actual shape of the upper, bar the hi-top cut, reminds us of the ZX 8000, but was the Fortitude Mid made on a whole new last?

For the Fortitude Mid, we actually used a popular running last to give a true running feel and comfort. We didn't compromise the fit at all to come up with the sleek design. With that in mind, a lot of attention went in to making sure all the lines were very clean and controlled to create a modern and sleek look. We are not big fans of lazy messy lines.

Were there any specific inspirations for this model from adidas's performance division?

We didn’t draw significantly on Performance models for the Fortitude’s upper, but for the tooling we were looking at technical running shoes from ’92 - ’93.

Was the midsole an all new creation?

Yes. One of the main goals was to bring a new technical midsole to our collection as we are focusing on the 90's look. It is new, but stayed close to the aesthetics of adidas’s 90's technical running shoes.

What's the story with the eyelets? The D-Rings and plastic is an interesting addition...

To create a modern look and feel, the first thing that came into our heads was to turn the metal eyelets into plastic. It speaks fun and lightness, kind of like toys. In a way, sneakers are like toys to a lot of us, aren't they? We have Fortitudes in an upcoming season with clear eyelets. Can't wait for you to see them!

What were the colour inspirations for this first wave of makeups?

Chris Law coloured up the shoe with really amazing colors. My job was to create graphically interesting colour blocking to which he could apply his magic.

Does the Dellinger web on the heel offer any benefits to the wearer? It definitely looks good.

The Dellinger web is one of our strong heritage elements. It disperses part of the heel shock and maintains stability of the EVA. The beauty is that it's simple but functional. Most importantly, you know it's adidas when you see it.