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‘that’s cool!’ First of they gave us a small<br />
range of shoes and asked us for the TLD<br />
‘touch’ as we’d done with helmets. We<br />
did a bunch and they loved it and that<br />
triggered all the next steps. They are like<br />
us, working behind a screen and looking<br />
for inspiration and I wondered if I could<br />
get rid of the ‘three stripes’: that was my<br />
challenge. I did many, many things and<br />
we just rolled on together for more stuff.<br />
<strong>On</strong>e day I was asking about new fabrics<br />
and making new steps and it was another<br />
direction in which the Adidas/TLD collaboration<br />
could move. They did a study<br />
for us. I remember them saying “this is a<br />
new fabric, by the way its hundred dollars<br />
a yard!” It was a bit advanced for the<br />
market but they made a prototype mockup<br />
and a video to show all the stretch. If<br />
Adidas were going to make a motocross<br />
pant then that’s how it would be. We were<br />
shown a presentation and we were blown<br />
away. It looked great on the mannequin<br />
but we needed to get it into the real test<br />
and race condition so that’s when we<br />
used our race team – Shane McElrath<br />
at the time and Jessy Nelson – and they<br />
wore it and thought it was amazing but at<br />
the same time we knew right away where<br />
it needed improvement. So that was five<br />
years ago and we just weren’t ready to<br />
make and produce it: it was so ‘out there’<br />
– Adidas and TLD! In the end, about<br />
three years ago, we saw that our competition<br />
was starting to come up with similar<br />
things so it was the moment to push<br />
hard. It was our fault that we weren’t able<br />
to make it first. We knew the Adidas pant<br />
would be good so three years ago we<br />
went for it and a year ago the first pant<br />
came onto the market. That was three<br />
years of development on and off.<br />
What about the actual look of it?<br />
They give us a little more freedom but<br />
the true story is that we couldn’t put<br />
much of a graphic because of the nature<br />
of the fabric. We tried, and we are<br />
MAKI USHIROYAMA & TLD
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