In our 30th anniversary year, we share a celebratory dram with Japanese sportswear company Mizuno as we blend both countries love for whisky for our take on the Sky Medal - ‘The Angel’s Share’.
Following the successful release of the Wave Rider 1, Mizuno delved back into their Japanese archives and pulled out the Sky Medal - a classic 90’s running shoe straight which was officially released in 1993 following an iconic debut at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona on the feet of all Mizuno athletes.
HANON was originally established in Elgin, a town located in the Speyside region of Scotland. This region is awash with distilleries and has the largest amount across the whole of the country, making it very famous for whisky. With distilleries, cooperages, and pagoda roofs aplenty throughout the Speyside landscape, for our HANON edition of the Sky Medal, we draw on the poetic nature of whisky and pay homage to ‘The Angel’s Share’.
‘The Angel’s Share’ is described as the percentage of alcohol that evaporates from a cask into the air as the whisky ages over time. For Scotland specifically, the amount that the Angel’s take is around 2% per year due to the colder nature of our climate but the share can also be determined by barrel size, time, and environmental conditions.
Utilising a distinctive brown corduroy application across the upper, we offset this with a rich chocolate brown pig suede underlay which the iconic ‘RunBird’ logo which graces the Sky Medal silhouette and symbolizes Mizuno’s roots in Japanese culture and its approach to sports is decked out in vibrant blue cord. The toe and vamp are treated to a lush light cream pig suede with sunburst perforated detailing, and this material transfers up through to the tongue section of the one-piece sockliner construction.
Letting the materials and colourway do the talking, tonal branding appears on the heel and tongue by way of a subtle keyline emboss, and we’ve applied dual-branding to the leather laminated insole which features the Gaelic phrase “Uisge beatha” - used to describe whisky and translates to “water of life”. To finish off the shoe, it is sat atop a clean white molded EVA midsole which features Mizuno’s innovative Transtab cushioning system and paired with a black rubber outsole contrasted with vibrant pops of blue.
Presented in the classic Mizuno box, our HANON edition of the Sky Medal is supplied with three lace sets complete with branded aglets.
Slàinte.
Release Details:
For this release, we have produced a special reserve of our Angel’s Share Sky Medal which comes presented in a bespoke wooden box complete with a SneakersER premium sneaker cleaning kit. We’ve robbed the angels of their share of this release and will instead select 50 raffle entrants to receive their share of HANON’s special reserve.
The HANON x Mizuno Sky Medal ‘The Angel’s Share’ launched at HANON via an ONLINE RAFFLE on Friday 21st of February at 12:00GMT.
There will also be an IN-STORE RELEASE that will take place on Thursday 20th of February from 5PM until 8PM.
SKU Code: D1GD1942-19
Colour: Brown/Blue/Grey
Price: £129.00.
Size Break: UK4 / UK4.5 / UK5 / UK5.5 / UK6 / UK6.5 / UK7 / UK7.5 / UK8 / UK8.5 / UK9 / UK9.5 / UK10 / UK10.5 / UK11
