The Nike Air Mag became famous after being worn by Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II.
The film, released in 1989, imagined a futuristic 2015 in which McFly wore shoes that automatically tightened. Nike later created limited Air Mag releases inspired by the movie prop, making the fictional design a real collectible.
The 2011 release used a battery-powered lighting system but did not reproduce the full automatic-lacing function. A smaller 2016 release added self-lacing technology and was sold to support the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research.
The Air Mag is commonly confused with Nike HyperAdapt 1.0, which was Nike’s commercially released self-lacing shoe. Air Mag refers to the Back to the Future-inspired collectible, while HyperAdapt was developed as a broader product line.