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"  If you&amp;#039;re into sneakers, you already know that Nike, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the iconic Air Force 1, recently released a lighter, sleeker update to the quintessential streetwear shoe. It took about 20 months of development, and it&amp;#039;s called the Lunar Force 1. And even though you can tell, right off the bat, that there&amp;#039;s something very different about this new style, it&amp;#039;s not exactly an unmitigated departure from the classic look of the model that inspired it. That&amp;#039;s because most of the changes are structural, technological \u2014 under the hood, if you will. Which is actually a fitting way to describe things, seeing as the Lunar Force 1 was designed by Nike Sportswear&amp;#039;s Marc Dolce, a man who got his start in industrial automative design before he moved on to outfitting the feet of athletes and sneaker freaks around the world. We caught up with Dolce to chat about history: his own, the AF1&amp;#039;s, and how the Lunar Force 1 fits into all of that. Esquire.com: So you didn&amp;#039;t start with shoes. You initially did industrial design for cars, right? Marc Dolce: Yeah. I&amp;#039;m originally from Brooklyn, and went to school at Pratt. And as I was looking to figure out what I wanted to do \u2014 you know, cars were always a passion of mine. And getting into industrial design was great, because it allowed me to work on a lot of different types of products. But when I was in school, I got the opportunity to do an internship, and that&amp;#039;s what got me started in footwear. That&amp;#039;s when I was able to design an entire shoe and not just part of a car. Seeing people wear it was pretty amazing. For me, being able to work with footwear was kind of like being able to mix art, science, and fashion together, which I thought was pretty cool. And then being able to interact with people once they have your product on is something that&amp;#039;s obviously great. You can talk to people about what they&amp;#039;re wearing and get their insights. It was a much more emotional connection for me, doing footwear.  ESQ: You do kind of have that scientific edge, though, right? So much of what you&amp;#039;ve done is very much steeped in the technological advances that Nike&amp;#039;s making. MD: Absolutely. You know, part of my day, just as I start my morning, is I look at cars, technology, fashion, and art. I&amp;#039;m inspired by all different types of things, but for me, being able to use technology in a casual way, that&amp;#039;s important. I&amp;#039;m in Nike Sportswear, and then there&amp;#039;s the Nike Performance Team. There&amp;#039;s a separation and not a lot of people know how it works, but in Sportswear we&amp;#039;re trying to drive the lifestyle approach. So you know, I&amp;#039;ll work with LeBron and Kobe and I ask them, &amp;quot;What do you want off the court?&amp;quot; But I look at technology two ways: There&amp;#039;s new innovation, which is more of a modern craft, and then on the opposite side there&amp;#039;s classic, crafted, handmade in Italy, that sort of thing. There&amp;#039;s just a mixture, a nice balance. But definitely bringing innovation in is what Nike&amp;#039;s known for.  A SKETCH OF THE LUNAR FORCE 1, BY MARC DOLCE  ESQ: I read that the Lunar Force 1 dropped six ounces of weight compared to the original Air Force 1. It went from 17 ounces to 11.  MD: Yeah.  ESQ: That&amp;#039;s impressive. The original is a heavy shoe.  MD: When we first started with the Air Force 1 for the 30th anniversary, we really wanted to finish off strong. And one of the things we talked about was just the weight of the Air Force 1. When you look back to the 50s, there were heavy telephones you&amp;#039;d have on your nightstand or your end table \u2014 there was a perceived value in weight. Even today when you look at some cars, there&amp;#039;s a perceived value in weight. But we think comfort going forward is going to be a really important element. People want to wear a shoe all day, and they want to feel good about what they&amp;#039;re wearing. So weight was something we talked about. But the six-ounce drop was a byproduct, actually. ESQ: Really? So that wasn&amp;#039;t what you were driving at?  THE LUNAR FORCE 1, IN ITS NATURAL HABITAT  MD: No, not really. For me \u2014 I hate to say it like this \u2014 it&amp;#039;s not about being the lightest weight, because we can make a shoe that weighs five ounces. It&amp;#039;s about being the right weight. That&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s important. We could have probably gone even lighter with the Lunar Force 1, but then you start to lose structure and support. So what we were trying to do was find that structure and balance. When we started looking at bringing the Lunarlon [foam] into the midsole, that&amp;#039;s when we started removing a lot of rubber along the side wall, which was probably one of the biggest contributing factors in removing weight. So even though we maintained the DNA \u2014 and that was really important to us, looking for ways to improve, not to redesign \u2014 this was more of an evolution, taking it to a new and better place. Not building it all over again. ESQ: And the Lunar Force 1 uses Hyperfuse construction, right? MD: Yeah, this is Hyperfuse. It&amp;#039;s a uni-body construction, so it&amp;#039;s one piece of mesh, all the way around. And then what we do is we fuse the top layer of skin to protect you from the elements, and then we have a backer. What that does is give you structure, because without that backer you lose all the structure and the shoe wouldn&amp;#039;t necessarily hold up. We&amp;#039;ve done this kind of technique before, over the last few years within Performance, and slowly we&amp;#039;re starting to move some of that technology into Sportswear. For me as a designer, I get to do things I couldn&amp;#039;t do with traditional methods of making. So that&amp;#039;s kind of cool. ESQ: Some people lament the encroachment of technology into clothing production. I&amp;#039;m guessing you&amp;#039;re firmly on the other side of that issue? MD: I&amp;#039;m actually probably \u2014 I feel like I&amp;#039;m balanced. I really appreciate vintage. When I shop, it&amp;#039;s like that old saying, &amp;quot;Something old, something new.&amp;quot; I think it&amp;#039;s how you mix it up that&amp;#039;s kind of important. For footwear, there are so many great technologies that Nike has, so for me, as a designer, it&amp;#039;s almost like being a kid in a candy store. It&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;How do I want to use these technologies over the next few years?&amp;quot; We get to actually have some fun with technology.     "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/style/interviews/a18470/marc-dolce-lunar-force-1-interview-2013/>