NIKE AIR TROUPE MID (WOMENS)

It's rare that we get to see such an innovative shoe made especially for the ladies, so all hail Nike Footwear designer Ann-Marie Paz who has designed the Nike Air Troupe Mid specifically for the female dancer. Over two years of research and development have gone into the design of the Air Troupe Mid, ranging from a benchmark dance study conducted at the Nike Sports Research Lab (NSRL) to interviews with dancers and b-girls from New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo, as well as product testing of the prototypes with a hip-hop dance class in New York.

Hip-hop dancers are quite different from classical dancers as they use every part of their shoes, which need to be durable in order to withstand both the wear that results from dancing on a variety of surfaces and the tear from 360-degree dragging/sliding that’s required in hip-hop/breaking. On the visual side, the silver upper and lavender accents help keep the focus on the dancer's feet, where let's face it, the attention should be!