crooked tongues magazine News Features

Like you, we've spent a great deal of time trying to ascertain as to whether anyone's actually fighting the good fight and dropping those future classics. We thought pieces like the Beacon were the ones, but the sole unit splits office opinion (are there shades of that performance aesthetic in the Torch pieces?) but now it seems the Nike Running line is building a new legacy that'll spare us the pioneering but increasingly over saturated retro runner onslaught. We liked the Lunar debut a lot, and the LunarLite technology led to some even more appealing shoes - last year's Run Avant+ in particular was a thing of beauty, and the toebox Swoosh on it harked back to '97's Zoom Air glories - as with that progressive period, where slimline Air freed up designers to innovate, Lunar technology seems to be doing the same. We don't even have to kid ourselves that we're seeing an influx of modern classics either. The LunarElite is one of the best new shoes we've seen in a while.

Designed as a tempo trainer for folk across the everyman spectrum of underpronation to moderate overpronation, this is a serious shoe. It's not using the Henry Ford approach to colourways and it's not hipster friendly. Those are good things by the way. We've singled out this green, blue and white makeup just because it evokes some memories of an early '90s neoprene breakthrough that had the playground going nuts, but other colourways bang too - beyond the tricked-out waffle outsole, that's as referential as this one gets. That fine 'DYNAMIC SUPPORT' branding on the medial side of the midsole brings to mind the mighty Structure II - but that's our own feverish imaginations running riot in the search for old shoes to evoke.

Where, just a few years back, it seemed almost vulgar to make cutting edge runners look visually pleasing, as the Pegasus line was too busy performing to scrub up prior to the 2008 redesign, the introduction Lunar and Flywire just allowed for some extremely good looks. That foam also keeps it stupid light and the wire keeps the foot in place - this one breathes, no-sew just won't allow a product to get clunky, and these are particularly comfortable straight out the box. Shit, when we have a crisis over our ailing-officebound health, we'll even consider running in these too. Even the memory foam in the collar has been worked in with a certain design savvy - other brands, step your game up. The era of the defiantly ugly athletic shoe seems to be winding to a close thanks to liberating technologies than won't make you look like a local simpleton when you twin them with denim on a day without exercise. The Lunar Elite is out at NikeTown now...