What took Nike so long, exactly? The crew dreamt up an entirely new material to build the Caitlin 1’s uppers: Nike Opticast, built from sturdy, flexible polyurethane nodes that reduce air drag and provide extra lateral stability. Beyond the performance specs, however, the nodes provide a visually stunning raised surface, molded into tiny “CC”s on one side and “22”s, for Clark’s jersey number, on the other.
One design detail requested by Clark herself? Two Swooshes layered over one another, which the shoe’s designer Ben Nethongkome used as an opportunity to nod to the Indiana Fever star’s greatest superpower. “With her threes being the main focus,” Nethongkome says, “the belly of the Swoosh we saw as a representation of the three-point arc.”
