The difference of one gram in a sneaker’s weight can mean seconds shaved off of a marathon time. This type of performance datum was previously of interest only to the most intense runners; now, the sport has taken over mainstream culture. The global running gear market is projected to reach almost $70 billion by 2032, up from $45 billion in 2024. It’s unclear how much of that has to do with Harry Styles’s newfound running obsession, but Gen Z’s health and fitness obsession is going a long way in fueling the industry’s growth. Gen Z runners made up the biggest cohort (25%) of those in the 2025 New York marathon, where only 17% of runners were under 30 in 2022. Gen Z have also accounted for a large part of the almost 10 million pairs of Adidas’s more affordable supershoe, the $150 Evo SL, which were sold by the end of 2025.
All this means running is huge business in 2026 — which strengthens the case for sports brands’ significant investment in footwear technology to win the supershoe race. Here, Vogue Business sits down with Adidas’s general manager of running Patrick Nava and innovation chief Marc Makowski to find out how — and why — the brand spent the last three years investing in the tech behind the new Pro Evo 3.
Vogue: What is so significant about the launch of the Pro Evo 3?
Marc: First of all, the foam is obviously a critical piece. We’ve created the next generation of our Lightstrike Pro Evo foam, which is nearly 50% lighter than its predecessor and automatically drives the whole weight further down. Then, beyond weight, what’s also critical is the construction. How do we achieve a high level of “defoamation” — the spring effect we see from compressing the foam. That’s balanced out with the right level of stiffness via how we’ve changed the construction of the carbon stiffening element. It’s a totally new interplay of the carbon just around the rim of the midsole, beneath the foam, which allows for massive compression under the foot while keeping the maximum level of stability and stiffness at the same point in time.
We took the very same thinking into the upper ear of the shoe, working with a totally new sense of materialization, inspired by the sailing and kite surfing industry, and really looking at what’s the lightest possible material, via ripstop textiles that also feature polyester yarns — which have 1.5x the kind of strength of a regular yarn. Again, that combines the lightest weight possible with the highest level of stability. Every component was chosen through the lens of: how do we achieve the fastest possible with the lightest possible?
Vogue: A decrease by a third in weight is huge. What’s accelerated in footwear technology to make that happen? Can things get even lighter?
Marc: Back when we first started making supershoes, we had very few materials that were available to produce the individual foams. Now, there’s a magnitude of different materials available, and composites like carbon fiber have also improved further from a weight perspective.
When we look at the shoe upper, we’ve gone beyond materials we’ve used before, and taken inspiration from other industries, like sailing and kite surfing, which are exposed to extreme wind conditions and need to be ultra-light. I don’t see things accelerating much more beyond the sub-100 gram weight we’re now at, simply because there isn’t too much more you can strip from a product like this. Though, we do have several prototypes in the works now, based on the Pro Evo 3, which are the next product, tweaking other elements. So there’s no finish line.
