For year, shoes were made of two materials – leather or canvas, at least here in the US. As recently as 2008, plastics and fuse materials were introduced as cutting edge and high-performance, and now we are inundated with wovens and knits. Now Reebok brings the next step – the Reebok Floatride GROW, a high-performance runner that utilizes a completely bio-degradable, eucalyptus fabric upper and an odor-resistant insole made of harvested Bloom algae. Moving to the outsole, the rubber is not from petroleum but actually harvested from rubber trees.
The midsole is made of the magical Reebok running foam, Floatride, that is actually produced using castor bean oil, and provides a serious bounce while being super-lightweight and responsive. The GROW is not meant to be a gimmick shoe – it is still a serious runner and should hold it’s own against the more “traditional” runners in the market.
The Reebok Floatride GROW is set to be available a year from now, Fall 2020, and no retail price is known at this time, but the ideas and technology alone, along with the idea the shoe is actually almost completely natural, should make sneakerheads of this generation check them out.
As Reeebok gets set to gear up for the launch, they are also launching the [REE]GROW program, which will mark the beginning of the sustainability sneaker production, and [REE]CYCLED, the recycling program to turn the materials from the shoes into, well, new shoes.
