Behind the Design

Our mission was simple: create a shoe with our lowest carbon footprint yet. How? We used rubbish to make it. Each Space Hippie silhouette weighs in at 25–50% recycled rubbish. People said it would never work. They said it couldn't be done. But Space Hippie is proof that it could. Nike has always been obsessed with designing the best shoe at any cost. But given today's climate challenges, a shoe must also be designed with sustainability in mind to be the best. That means we made it using less energy, creating less waste and with lower-impact design choices inside and out. As creators, we had to re-imagine what it means to source, manufacture and reclaim the products we design—to redefine design in a way that had never been done at Nike.

The process of dreaming up Space Hippie was a little like walking into a dark room without a torch. By leaning into the unknown and expanding our ideas of perfection, we evolved our thinking and learnt how to make a shoe that we could be proud of and that served our goal of helping protect the planet. Space Hippie was created through mystery. We wanted to discover that place where fun met weird. And we did.