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Today at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Kevin Durant joins Ahmad Rashad in an unveiling of KD’s newest shoe, the KD7. During the interview Ahmad and KD they go through the design process and inspirations of the sneaker and also a viewing of KD’s latest commercial. As well as various questions asked by twitter users and some of the audience. The main theme to the KD 7 is lightning and the superfluous phrase of lightning never striking twice. This phrase represents the Durant’s versatility on the court, KD and designer Leo Chang kept emphasizing versatility.
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The story on getting the KD 7 design going was that when the KD 6 was almost ready to go Durant had alright contacted Chang about starting on the 7’s. They bounced ideas back and forth and they came forth with the lighting versatility idea. The lightning theme comes from Durant’s fascination with meteorology from when he was a child; he wanted to be a weatherman. Another thing about the shoe that was emphasized was it had to be made to complement KD’s quick first step. So the shoe was made light but at the same time KD wanted stability.
Chang’s performance objective for the KD7 was to provide Durant with the quickness and forefoot flexibility typically reserved for a point guard, combined with the stability and support in a shoe designed for a power forward.
Chang accomplished this “best of both worlds” design challenge by using seamless forefoot mesh, dynamic Nike Flywire technology and encapsulated Nike Zoom in the front of the shoe. Bridging the transition between the forefoot and heel is a midfoot strap. Chang combined Hyperposite support in the heel with a newly developed visible Nike Zoom Air bag for responsive cushioning.
The Hyperposite technology, making its debut in KD’s signature line, provides the reigning MVP with support for his evolved post moves and rebounding. The distinct Hyperposite look, an evolution to the original Foamposite, is also a nod to KD’s Maryland roots. His hometown region, affectionately known as the DMV – DC-Maryland-Virginia – has an ongoing love affair with Foamposite, which debuted two decades ago with the launch of the Nike Air Foamposite One in 1997
Leo and KD went through the stories and design aspects of a few of the colorways as well. They went through 5 colorways. First they talked about the July Fourth colorway sporting the red, white and blue and how KD will be representing the USA this summer with those on. Next it’s a mango and green colorway called “easy money” because someone tried challenging KD to a game and well the opponent was no match. There was also the back story of Benjamin Franklin discovering electricity through the whole key and lightning story and how Ben Franklin is on the 100 dollar bill so it’s all relative to the name “easy money” for this particular colorway. The third colorway that was introduced, “The Global Game” was an all red colorway because red is KD’s favorite color as well as a Nike Basketball festival being at the start of Chicago this summer so it embodies the Chicago colors as well as Spain’s FIBA games. There’s also a globe on the “D” of the KD logo as well as multi-speckles that represents all the different races coming together around the globe to celebrate the game basketball. “The Calm Before The Storm” is a silver and dark grey and pink color is another meteorologist related colorway. It is the ominous clouds the loom the skies before the lightning hit. Finally they unveiled to us the “Bright Mango” colorway. All of these colorways tells a specific story that is a certain aspect of Kevin Durant’s life.
You can ID the KD7s now on Nike.com and tomorrow 6/26 other colors will start to release. Stay tuned with us here at Kicksologists to get your information on future colorway releases.
http://youtu.be/BusHStHDJM8