On streets across the USA, and again on sports biggest stage ---the London Olympic Games-- the only thing that might be more eye-catching than athletes' bodies is their footwear. Chances are you've seen flashes of neon yellow catching your eye. The likely source: Nike's uber-bright Volt collection. Athletes are sporting the electric-hued shoes everywhere from the road to the track to the medal stand and back again. You may have seen them on Trey Hardee, Ashton Eaton, and even the swimmers.
Track-and-field purists might consider the color distracting, but for the increasingly style-conscious world of sports, the pumped-up kicks are a modern example of function meeting fashion, the second coming, perhaps, of Michael Johnson's golden Nike spikes that grabbed headlines at the 1996 Atlanta Games. "Using the Volt color for all of the Nike shoes is designed to make a bold statement on sports' biggest stage," says Martin Lotti, Nike's global Olympic creative director. The statement: If you look fast, you will move fast.