A decade ago, Nike took a proverbial leap into the future of sneakers with their launch of Nike Mag — a fictional concept shoe inspired by the movi
A decade ago, Nike took a proverbial leap into the future of sneakers with their launch of Nike Mag — a fictional concept shoe inspired by the movie Back to the Future Part II.
The 1,500 limited edition was so revered for its idiosyncratic self-lacing design, that it wrote itself into sneaker folklore as one of the greatest productions of all time.
From the moment legendary 80’s hip-hop trio Run-DMC unified the crowd in raising aloft their Adidas shoes to the sound of “My Adidas,” to the debut of basketball’s most iconic apparel — the “notorious” Air Jordan — sneakers have become a prominent feature of the fashion culture’s pursuit for esteem and reverence.
In these times of visual exuberance, it would have been outlandish to suggest that upon purchasing a shoe of this calibre, the buyer would not receive the actual shoe.
And yet, fast forward to today, and that’s exactly where we find ourselves.
What has throughout history been solely conceived to be a tangible asset one can touch, wear and showcase, is now entering a cultural metamorphosis into virtual landscapes birthed upon blocks and nodes.
RTFKT Studios (pronounced “artifact”) is an ambitious project at the forefront of futuristic fashion in the metaverse.
For years, the collective operated quietly for selective gaming companies and fashion brands, until their unveiling to the public sphere in early 2020.
Founded by Chris Le, Benoit Pagotto and Steven Vasilev, RTKFT utilizes emerging technologies such as game engines, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain authentication and augmented reality to create immersive virtual and physical sneakers, as well as AR-integrated collectables.
The project has experienced social growth over the past twelve months, boasting collaborations with the likes of Jeff Staples and Janet Jackson, as well as digital collectible drops in gaming metaverses The Sandbox and Decentraland.
In addition, the team benefited from an $8 million funding raise in May 2021 from notable figures Andreessen Horowitz, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital and Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou, among others.
As well as virtual products, RTFKT have also executed two forging events, an initiative granting holders the opportunity to redeem the physical reciprocal of their NFT possession.
For a behind-the-scenes look into RTFKT’s upcoming ventures, as well as a perspective on the wider adoption of NFT fashion culture, Cointelegraph spoke to the co-founder and chief creative officer of RTFKT Studios, Chris Le.
Pre-RTFKT, Chris‘ career included graphic design work for music labels Def Jam and Sony, music video directing for artists such as Ty Dolla Sign and Anderson .Paak, directing and editing credits for two Netflix movies starring Danny Trejo, in addition to gaming designs.
This Zoom interview has been condensed to suit reading constraints.
Cointelegraph: Chris, thanks for joining us today. What’s your current role at RTFKT and what projects are you focusing on?
Chris Le: I’m the co-founder and chief creative officer at RTKFT. Day-to-day I manage a team of artists and conceptualize sneaker designs. If I feel like getting my hands dirty, I’ll model the 3D sneakers, do all the rendering and make the NFT’s out of them.
To be honest, I don’t even consider myself a sneaker designer, I never had that ambition. What’s funny is that when I fell into it, I was insanely happy because I was able to utilize my past skill-sets from video games and the film industry: designing cosmetic items for Dota 2, weapon skins for Counter-Strike Global Defensive, visual effects for fantasy movies on Netflix and more.
Traditionally, sneaker designers are trained from the automotive industry. That’s why many sneakers have sleek designs like cars. However, I feel that my background gave me a different perspective from other designers.
CT: You recently collaborated with NZXT on an augmented-reality sneaker. Knowing that Facebook has just launched their first VR glasses with Ray-Ban and Snapchat are working on a similar product, what do you think are the current capabilities and limitations of AR, and how do you see this space evolving?
CL: I’m a huge supporter of AR, VR and XR. The engine capabilities are not all the way there yet for ultra-realism, but starting to get there with VR, and those engines will be able to translate to AR.
Some of our filters you can wear the sneaker on your foot, or wear a jacket, but it’s not yet perfect. At the moment it’s NFT-native crypto enthusiasts who are into AR and users of Snapchat and TikTok who use face filters for content purposes.
Where we want AR to be mainstream is real-life utility. I don’t think it will go extremely mainstream just yet, but it will. With 100% confidence I know we’re heading in that direction, it’s inevitable. For us to get there though, AR has to solve our most basic tech needs — navigation, phone calling, text…
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