Back to the Future, the first in a trilogy of films, was a box office success. In 1989, Nike Inc. designer Tinker Hatfield was asked to create a shoe for the second installment of the series, which was partly set in the then-futuristic year of 2015. The shoe had features such as light-up panels and self-fastening laces.
Over 15 years later, an online petition that asked for the return of the shoes caught the attention of Tinker Hatfield. With the help of footwear innovator Tiffany Beers, they began to build the Nike MAG from scratch. They worked on the shoes for approximately six years and had to restart about three times. After thousands of hours of work, the shoes were a perfect replica of the 1989 Nike MAG worn byMarty McFly. The shoes feature an electroluminescent out-sole, space age materials, and a rechargeable internal battery good for 3,000 hours. They are the first rechargeable pair of footwear by Nike. Power laces, a prominent feature of the shoe in the film, are not present. Nike has gone on record saying Mag is not meant for heavy activity and should not be worn for recreational purposes.
A spokesman for Nike would only say that a pair of the self-lacing Nike Mag shoes worn by Marty McFly in the 1989 film "Back to the Future II" is in New York City today - but declined to comment further.
"The first pair of self-lacing Nike Mag shoes is in New York City," the spokesman said in an email. It's not clear if the shoes will be sold to the public.
A limited quantity of 1,500 pairs were auctioned on eBay on September 8, 2011 and proceeds are currently being dedicated to the The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's disease research. Online sales of the shoe ranged between US$2,300 and US$9,959. 10 additional pairs, packaged in deluxe presentation boxes, were sold exclusively by Nike at live auctions around the world, for a total of 1,510 pairs.
In the film, McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, travels 30 years into the future to today's date: Oct. 21, 2015. There, he discovers hoverboards, flying cards and self-lacing sneakers.
