In “Back to the Future II,” Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, wears a pair of Nikes. But these aren’t just any Nikes — McFly’s light-up sneakers lace themselves.
Nike released these sneakers, the Nike Mags, in 2016 after working on the self-lacing shoe concept for over a decade. By 2012, the shoe giant had gotten the motor technology small enough that it could actually fit within a sneaker, and just a few years later, Nike raffled off these futuristic shoes to raise over $6.5 million for Fox’s Michael J. Fox Foundation.
One of those pairs went up for sale at Heritage Auction House this week and went for a grand total of $52,500, becoming the most expensive shoe sale administered by the auction house in its history and beating the previous record by a whopping $20,000.
Other shoes have been up for auction at staggering price points in recent weeks. A pair of rare Apple sneakers from the 1990s is expected to fetch up to $30,000, and a pair of Converse sneakers Michael Jordan wore in the 1984 Olympics just sold for over $140,000.
But even with all of the other limited-edition sneakers available, McFly’s self-lacing shoes are pretty hard to beat.
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The film franchise has spawned a myriad of impressive pop-culture moments over the years, blending fashion and film.
Over the years, Nike has released multiple iterations of the Mag sneaker. A 2011 replica of the shoe was made in a limited quantity of 1,500 pairs without the high-tech self-lacing feature. Similarly, Nike also created the HyperAdapt 1.0 inspired by the Mag sneakers lace-up tech.
More on “Back to the Future”
Created by Robert Zemeckis, the science fiction franchise follows teen Marty McFly, who teams up with scientist Emmett Brown, the creator of a time machine out of a modified DeLorean fitted with a flux capacitor.
