{"id":67372,"date":"2025-09-11T13:24:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T11:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.puma-catchup.com\/?p=67372"},"modified":"2025-10-27T19:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T19:56:13","slug":"revealed-the-shoes-they-never-wanted-you-to-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.puma-catchup.com\/es\/sports\/revealed-the-shoes-they-never-wanted-you-to-see\/","title":{"rendered":"REVELADOS: LOS ZAPATOS QUE NUNCA QUISIERON QUE VIERAS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Home<\/a>\/\n Sports<\/a>\/\n REVEALED: THE SHOES THEY NEVER WANTED YOU TO SEE\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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REVEALED: THE SHOES THEY NEVER WANTED YOU TO SEE<\/h1>\n
We’re Smashing Open The Vaults Of Secrecy And Let The Public Be The Judge<\/div>\n
11 de septiembre de 2025 <\/div>\n\n
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For decades, sports brands have completely hidden their experimental shoes from the public. Instead they\u2019ve been locked away in labs, shown only to elite athletes, and buried under so many layers of intense secrecy you could be forgiven for thinking they were nuclear launch codes. But all of this is about to change. For now, for the first time ever in sportswear history, PUMA is breaking the seal in Tokyo this Autumn.<\/strong>
There, in the Japanese capital in September, PUMA will tear up the unwritten rule book and hand over to the public one of its most closely guarded secrets \u2014 concept shoes that were never even meant for sale!<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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PUMA\u2019s Vice President BU Run\/Train, Erin Longin<\/strong>, manages strategy & product creation. But she is also the key spokesperson for PUMA\u2019s \u201cFuture of Fast\u201d in Tokyo, where these ground-breaking experimental concepts will be revealed.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Speaking from her office in Boston, she said: \u201cWe\u2019ve always been supporters of the track and field space. But it\u2019s more than that. We see track and field as the top of the pyramid \u2014 you know, it really is the pinnacle when it comes to the world of running. Track and field gives us a unique and powerful platform for innovation, and that\u2019s exactly what we are exploiting here.\u201d<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Specifically, we\u2019re now taking the plunge and, for the very first time, we\u2019re directly inviting the public to try out the exact same shoes that would normally never even leave the lab.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe shoes are concept pieces, engineered as pure performance experiments. But instead of just keeping everything under wraps, we are totally breaking the mould, and we\u2019re going to release them in the full glare of the world\u2019s biggest athletics stage.\u201d

As part of the set-up in Tokyo, PUMA will have a treadmill hamster-wheel rig, allowing visitors to test not just how they feel walking around a shoe store, but how they really feel when running.

\u201cThis means visitors will literally step into our R&D and feel what usually only athletes and engineers get to experience,\u201d says Erin.

\u201cOur innovation team is always developing concept cars\u2026 we just never show people,\u201d<\/strong> she said. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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\u201cFor the first time ever, we\u2019re opening the doors to that and we\u2019re showcasing how PUMA innovates.\u201d<\/strong>

At the heart of all this, says Erin, is the \u2018Future of Fast<\/strong>\u2019 concept, which her team will be bringing to Tokyo.

This means exploring how PUMA as a brand is redefining what speed is, what its boundaries are, and how far they can be pushed \u2013 but this time doing so with the public.

\u201cInstead of keeping the public and the visitors deliberately out of the process and wrapping it all in secrecy, as has always been the case, we are now flipping the script completely. We are involving the public, and showing them we really value their input on what makes a great shoe for them.\u201d<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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It sometimes feels like an attempt to fuse two incompatible worlds \u2014 that of a carnival and a biomechanics lab.

In terms of a carnival, PUMA certainly has lots to celebrate, not least the number of gold medals its sponsored athletes have already won.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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PUMA\u2019s athletes are winning gold medals and we\u2019re hoping they will continue to achieve greatness and reach their goals at Tokyo,says Erin.<\/strong><\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWe typically have a lot of medal winners on the podiums in our events, so we\u2019re hoping to have that happen again for them, as we have an amazing portfolio of athletes. I think we have over 140 athletes competing in the championship. So we\u2019ll have a really great brand presence on the track and field.\u201d

But far from the drama and excitement of the running field, the race track, or even the visitor\u2019s hamster wheel, is the mysterious but equally essential world of the laboratory.

Deep in what has so far been a secret realm, and without chance to revel in the glory of roaring stadium crowds \u2014 countless experts are also putting in countless hours as they make extraordinary efforts to help achieve the very same goal as the athletes \u2013 the goal of pushing the boundaries of speed.

\u201cPUMA sees track and field as the purest test. The world record in the sprint is under 10 seconds, so the intensity is enormous,\u201d<\/strong> reveals Erin.

\u201cBut if footwear can endure the massive pressure of a sub-ten-second sprint or of a pole-vault take-off, it can survive anything.<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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But you only find this out by taking risks, experimenting and testing \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what we are doing, testing out all sorts of conditions and seeing how our unique foam in our shoes reacts to them.\u201d<\/strong>

\u201cFor us, Tokyo gives us a platform for innovation, because we can work directly with athletes to understand their needs, and it helps us innovate across all of running.\u201d
\u201cIts so great that now fans have the opportunity to be directly involved, and even running the process themselves. In this way there\u2019s now going to be a kind of direct line running straight from the production floor to championship foyer!\u201d
PUMA athletes have already been directly involved in the development of these shoes in recent years, even travelling to designated factories in Vietnam to help, for example.

But now those same concepts, developed and honed in these factories, will be strapped onto public feet in Japan \u2014 and now, with the whole world watching, they will be tested out. And so ground-breaking is this concept, it will even make other supposedly \u2018forward-thinking\u2019 concepts look almost ancient.<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s all about learning. Experimenting. Testing. And learning from what happens. And this involves being bolder and taking risks.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cWe have in the past seen brands create 3D-printed models of ideas, but they\u2019re essentially art projects\u2026 you just walk through and you look at it.\u201d<\/span><\/blockquote>\u201cSo we decided to turn this completely on its head. We wanted to be quite different \u2014 not just having imaginative ideas, but also having actual product and technology, and by actually letting people really experience it, not just talk about it as an abstract idea.\u201d

\u201cThis is about concept-car innovations: extreme prototypes built to push limits, not to be commercialised. And this is the very first non-commercial event of its kind, opened to public feet during a global championship.\u201d<\/strong>
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But in a world of social media madness, where embarrassing slip-ups become hilarious video entertainment for millions in a matter of mere seconds, most corporate marketing experts are hyper-vigilant, even paranoid about providing any opportunity which might expose their company to criticism \u2013 and especially not ridicule.
For Erin, however, PUMA\u2019s decision to embrace transparency at Tokyo is far from a recipe for a PR catastrophe.

\u201cOkay, so our framing of the event is maybe rather bold, but that is because the risks are bolder than ever. Concept pieces are simply uncompromising as they are often tuned for one discipline rather than comfort. They may not even last a week of pounding.\u201d

\u201cBut instead of letting us be frightened by this, we are embracing it as a learning experience. We are showing everything to the world \u2014 which invites instant judgement, and instant video.\u201d<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cTrue \u2014 sometimes it may not go the way we want it to. A tiny grimace with someone wearing one of our shoes could go viral in seconds. But so could awe. So a fan stepping off a treadmill, wide-eyed, grinning \u2014 this is priceless.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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All this comes at a time when competition could not be more fierce. Right now brands are locked in an race for foams, plates and \u201cfeel\u201d that is so overwhelmingly fierce that the safest play seems to be secrecy until perfection.

But this time PUMA, though significantly smaller than its mainstream rivals, is arguing the exact opposite \u2014 that openness beats mystique.

\u201cSpectators usually stay outside the performance bubble. But at Tokyo, visitors won\u2019t just buy merchandise. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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They\u2019ll learn what rebound feels like at pace, how take-off changes with foam compression. They\u2019ll leave saying not \u2018I saw\u2019 but \u2018I felt.\u2019\u201d

\u201cFor example, we launched an amazing product \u2014 the Fast-R 3 \u2014 and that is the fastest running shoe on the market. And we have all of the testing to prove that, both internal and external studies. So 2025 has been a turning point of innovation.
\u201cAnd now Tokyo is meant to reinforce that and push it even further, by showcasing never-seen-before concepts. So we are here to test boundaries, to test extremes, and not just make sales.\u201d<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cAnd of course what allows us to do all of this is the NITRO foam \u2014 which is really our backbone: premium materials, constant iteration, the secret sauce across spikes and road shoes.\u201d<\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s just wonderful, and it is what all of our competitors want. And when it comes to the formula \u2014 perhaps the only thing we are still choosing to keep secret and be silent about these days.\u201d<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A post shared by PUMA Running (@pumarunning)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>