HTM is back! We can't remember the last official Nike release under this heavy-hitter acronym, but given the impeccable credentials of the key players (Tinker Hatfield, Mark Smith, Hiroshi Fujiwara and Nike CEO Mark Parker), you know this is definitely going to be worth the price of admission. Previous HTM releases have veered from premium Air Force 1s in over-sized boxes to Court Forces, wovens and the Macropus amongst other classics. Given the recent cosmic switch to plimsolls and lo-fi vulcafieds, we were certainly intrigued as to the new HTM direction - our money was on modernity - a woven chukka flywire packin' anti-vulc free boot made from ground-up space shuttle dust was our prediction. As it turned out, we weren't entirely wrong - the new HTM2 is a fairly radical looking bootie with more than a whiff of '90s deja vu about it. Rubber toe caps, slip-on fit, elastic gussets... throw in a novel stencilled Swoosh and you have one of the most futuristic designs to roll out of Portland in a good minute.
Whatever your point of view, and this one won't be hard to hate, it's definitely radical enough to inspire water cooler convos, which we see as a definite plus. On the downside, the limited distribution makes it tough to cop a pair! We've seen various snippets of things this year from all brands and remain hopeful that we might just be seeing the first glimpses of a 'new wave' of ambitious product coming through.... but the questions remains, is the timing right and will kids go for it?
The Nike HTM2 Run Boot is available exclusively in Japan and at 21 Mercer on Feb. 20th and March 1st.
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