Nike iD: Design Your Own Shoes

I mentioned earlier that I always have problems with finding shoes, because one foot is larger (or is it longer?) than the other. At the time I discovered that Nike has a cool service, which let’s you customize your shoes (and other products): Nike iD. The idea is that you can specify the colors of your shoes yourself and with some designs this gives you a lot of choice. What is great though is that with some designs you can even specify different shoe sizes for each foot: perfect!

For woman they’ve got 33 different designs which you can choose from, for men 67 different types. This also includes though multiple type of football shoes and basketball shoes for the men, while woman for instance only have one choice of football shoe. I’m not complaining though, I don’t like football.

The coolest part of the customization choices is that you can put your iD on them. For the shoes, this means you can let them stitch your name or a short phrase on the tongues of the shoes (or if you’re boring something like “Left” and “Right” or “Sinister” and “Dexter”). Beside the shoes, you can also customize bags and watches. Guys can also customize clothing, but they only have a couple of tight running T-shirts. I would like to see some “normal” girly sport clothes that I can customize myself, but I guess we’ll have to wait for that.

Next to the regular NikeID shoes, you can also get Nike+ID. These are shoes that have a secret compartment in the left sole, where you can place the Nike+ iPod sensor. While working out, the sensor sends all types of information to your iPod. I got a pair of Air Zoom Moira+ iD for my birthday, together with the iPod sensor. I had gone to the Nike Store at Oxford Circus (London), where they have a special section for Nike iD orders. The guys there are quite helpful and you can try out and see the different designs and colors they have. What I found a bit weird though was that they didn’t have the model I wanted in my size to try out.

I’ve got sizes 5.5 and 6, which isn’t too small, I think. I had to fit on shoes from another model to try and guess my size. I ordered them, hoping that I guessed right. I was told though that if after receiving them they didn’t fit or even if I didn’t like the colors, I could get my money back or order them again in another design and size. It took about a month to actually create and ship the shoes to the Nike store and I got a nice email telling me when they were ready. I picked them up without too much hassle. What I adore about these shoes, is that I’ve actually got Miss Geeky on them:

After running with these a couple of weeks, I have to say I love how comfortable they are. I might even wear them besides my running, although they might be a bit too shiny for that. I haven’t mastered the iPod sensor yet (it doesn’t do completely what I want), but more about that another time. If you are looking for new running shoes, these are pretty good, but they might be a bit expensive for some (80 pounds). Add the iPod sensor to that and that’s quite an investment into some sports gear. For me, it was absolutely worth it and if you’re willing to put a bit of money into it, this is by far the way to go.