LUNAR RACER
Joining the ever-evolving Nike Sportswear line is the Nike LunaRacer – Nike’s latest performance innovation in distance running—which makes its debut at 21 Mercer in five limited edition color ways. The Nike LunaRacer represents the future in Nike’s design DNA. Brought to life in Nike’s Innovation Kitchen, the Nike LunaRacer is as much a revolution in running as it is a race day performance running shoe. The Nike LunaRacer brings together two technologies – Flywire and Lunarlite foam – designed for the best athletes in Beijing and beyond, creating a distance running shoe that is lighter, stronger, and faster than anything Nike has previously created in the distance running category.
Flywire technology, located throughout the Nike LunaRacer shoe’s upper, works like cables on a suspension bridge, providing precisely engineered support for the foot. The Flywire filaments are placed only where support is required, allowing for the reduction of materials, which equals reduction of weight. Flywire technology gained instant notoriety on the track via the Zoom Victory Spike worn by previous team USA middle distance runners, both medaled at the 2007 World Track & Field Championships in Osaka. Thanks to this innovation, track spikes with Flywire are now under 100g – a weight never before achieved by Nike – without compromising durability, integrity or support.
To add to the Nike LunaRacer shoe’s lightweight Flywire upper the Nike Innovation Kitchen developed Lunarlite foam, both lightweight and highly responsive, two qualities, which are usually mutually exclusive in cushioning. Lunarlite foam distributes the pressure patterns more evenly across the foot to help protect it from pain and injury – all-important for distance events. Lunarlite foam’s pillow-like softness is designed to reduce energy in the midsole. The Nike LunaRacer weighs a mere 5.5 ounces, and elite athletes who’ve experienced Lunarlite foam cushioning are reporting that after their long runs, they feel less beat up – a good sign for the blazing temperatures and speeds of the marathon in Beijing.
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ABOUT 21 MERCER ST
Nike today announced the opening of its first Nike Sportswear retail store at 21 Mercer Street in SoHo, New York City, offering exclusive access to premium products, an elevated retail experience, and a new customization experience called Nike Sportswear Bespoke, where consumers can work with Nike designers to customize premium Nike Sportswear footwear. Opening August 22nd, this stand-alone store will be the only location globally to carry the complete Nike Sportswear NSW collection, which includes seasonal exclusive 21 Mercer products.
Global Product Exclusives
The store will feature product exclusives including: The Flywire Windrunner, Air Max 90 Flywire and the 21 Mercer Nike LunaRacer. It will also offer limited quantities of other iconic Nike Sportswear product exclusives in footwear and apparel, including the made-to-order Air Force 1 Low Lux, a NSW collection Patchwork M65 jacket, as well as a Nike Sportswear 21 Mercer Tee collection.
Nike Sportswear Bespoke
A new and innovative by appointment design experience, Nike Sportswear Bespoke offers consumers the opportunity to work one-on-one with Nike Designers to customize select Nike footwear styles. Taking individual design to new heights, Nike Sportswear Bespoke is globally exclusive to 21 Mercer and launches in Fall 2008 with the iconic Air Force 1 sneaker.
Nike Sportswear at 21 Mercer Block Party
Nike Sportswear will celebrate the store opening with a New York block party on the evening of August 21st. Hundreds of invited guests will see Mercer Street transformed into a New York stadium and be the first to experience the store before it opens the next day. In the store and as part of the block party, there will be a presentation of work by Robert Wilson and producer Noah Khoshbin, who translated Nike’s design innovation in sport and the energy of athletes like dancer Sofia Boutella, skateboarder Shingo Iwasaki and BMX rider Nigel Sylvester into a unique visual and sensory experience. Their presentation premiered at the launch of the Nike Sportswear product line in Beijing in May 2008. Complimenting this will be work inspired by New York sport and style by a series of New York-based creatives including Timothy McGurr, Heron Preston and Boogie.
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21 Mercer NSW Collection M-65 by Nike Sportswear
Nike Sportswear takes the greatest of Nike’s 36-year-old sports heritage and adds the latest design and technical innovations, resulting in a range of products that are instantly recognizable as Nike icons, but updated to the highest levels of performance and style. Within the Nike Sportswear line the pinnacle NSW collection, the apex of what Nike Sportswear represents: product steeped in sports but pushed to the cutting edge of engineering, craftsmanship, and modern design.
What happens when you give designers access to the greatest sports innovations, past and present, and allow them free rein to remix iconic designs with the groundbreaking new technology? Imaginations run wild. Products born under the NSW label blend high-tech and high-style in ways that venture into the realm of the sublime.
The M-65 jacket is a true classic of military design. Updated and re-imagined as part of the NSW collection, it is produced from a highly functional three layer laminate waterproof breathable nylon. Built entirely from patchwork squares, constructed using ultrasonic welding/taped back construction where no stitch is used to form the patchwork (very minimal stitching is used in other parts of the garment), every Patchwork M65 jacket is unique— each having randomly placed patchwork layouts.
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Flywire Windrunner by Nike Sportswear
Considered the signature piece, the Flywire Windrunner jacket is a true remix of past, present and future innovations. It features gossamer-thin Japanese nylon, single layer ribbing on the wrists and waist, a digitally printed chevron (versus adding a seam), and of course a network of Flywire cables across the shoulders that adds strength and a distinctive graphic element to the piece. The Flywire is arranged in a pattern of four Flywire threads on the right and left chest, four lines on each shoulder, and two sets of four lines on the back, representing 080808, the opening day in Beijing this summer.
“Our goal was to make the lightest Windrunner ever and Flywire is ground zero innovation for weight reduction,” said Nike Sportswear Design Director Jarret Reynolds. The Flywire Windrunner jacket’s weight has been shaved down to a mere 116 grams—less than half the weight of then next lightest Windrunner. This is a jacket that is not only physically light, but also visibly light—an almost transparent garment
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