{"id":518084,"date":"2016-11-28T14:52:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T19:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/?p=518084"},"modified":"2020-03-02T16:30:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T21:30:27","slug":"inside-process-creating-adidas-xeno-josh-herr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.snkrsday.com\/inside-process-creating-adidas-xeno-josh-herr\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Process Of Creating Adidas Xeno With Josh Herr"},"content":{"rendered":"
words & interview \/\/ Nick DePaula:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Reflective materials have been around for decades in both footwear and apparel. Whether it was subtle piping along some of our favorite mid-90s basketball sneakers or more functional accenting panels atop running shoes to help late night joggers with visibility, the illuminating grey reflective 3M has long been relied on as an accenting feature.<\/p>\n As Josh Herr, adidas Originals’ Director of Colors & Materials, details below, reflective has been “pretty stagnant and mostly the same since the 80s.” The brand was looking to bring more energy to the material, helping to energize uppers under light, while still allowing them to retain a subtle tone to the naked eye.<\/p>\n After first kicking things off at the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in 2015, adidas Xeno<\/a> has become a platform for all things reflective from the brand. We’ve seen vivid snake scaled iterations for MLB’s All-Star Game<\/a>, tonal prism and geometric looks on Originals models, and now, saturated Xeno panels come to life through several flagship adidas Basketball models like the new DLillard 2, DRose 7 and Crazy Explosive. We’re also seeing Xeno for the first time atop the new AlphaBounce from adidas Running.<\/p>\n Read ahead for a backstory from Herr on the inspiration behind Xeno, and a look at how the material can light up like no other.<\/p>\n Nick DePaula: Where did the concept around this new approach to reflective first come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n Josh Herr: We’ve been working on reflective for a long time now. The first Xeno that we started working on was a year out before the first one dropped. At that time, we had a brand-wide push around reflective, and we decided that we really wanted to push reflective and innovate with reflective. At that point, we briefed in with our suppliers and started to work through a bunch of iterations for the different generations of Xeno. We’re currently at four different generations of Xeno, and we have enough for five or six that we’re still working through and developing.<\/p>\n Developing A New Reflective In Xeno:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n