The Under Armour Futurist Uses the 3D Printed Architech Tooling

Today, at Under Armour’s fashion show for its FW17 collection, the brand showed off a shoe nobody saw coming: the Under Armour Futurist.

An evolution of the very limited UA Architech, the brand’s first 3D printed shoe (we performance reviewed it, click here), the upcoming Under Armour Futurist has significant upgrades.

First, the 3D portion at the heel (yes, those intertwined tendrils) sits atop a firm, flat outsole that has different density foams for a much smoother ride (the model wearing these said they were pretty bouncy).

Second, the UA Futurist is all about fit — it uses a speed lacing system, common to winter sports enthusiasts, and a neoprene shroud with a zipper. It acts as an external compression sleeve, providing lockdown and support.

Third, the Under Armour Futurist uses UA’s fantastic fit solution, SpeedForm. It’s seamless and locks the heel in for added security while lifting, training, running, etc. This is most certainly a performance tool.

Interestingly, someone from Under Armour told me that due to the complexity of the tendrils it takes a full day to print the tooling for this shoe. Moreover, the UA Futurist has been weartested by elite UA athletes like Bryce Harper, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and key NCAA Elite athletes.

For those interested, the Under Armour Futurist will be a very limited release, and it will retail for $300, the same price as the UA Architech. It will launch in select cities globally on March 30 and a few pairs may hit UA.com.

What do you think of the Under Armour Futurist? Let us know in the comments below.

Photography by Stanley Tse. All rights reserved.