It’d be irresponsible to credit the explosive growth and success of On Running on a single design choice.
Yet it’s also hard to downplay the impact of the company’s signature CloudTec in distinguishing and defining On’s sneakers from established competitors.
The unique, tunneled outsoles, combined with the clever “cloud” branding, look futuristic and light, inspiring instant curiosity about how different they might feel underfoot compared to other shoes.
But as innovative and appealing as CloudTec is, On wasn’t the first footwear brand to eschew midsole designs that relied on a single foam layer.
In fact, roughly a decade before On came on the scene with the release of the Cloudracer in 2012, Nike and Adidas were locked in a battle to popularize similarly novel shoe designs via their Shox and Megaride sneaker lines.
Now, 20 years later, as has been typical in the fashion world until recently, what was once cool is becoming on trend again.
And as such, Adidas appears to be seizing the opportunity to revitalize Megaride in ways that should remind the larger footwear community of the three stripes’ earlier innovative contributions to sneaker design.
