British rapper Tinie Tempah paid $37, 500 for a pair of Nike’s 2011 Air Mag shoes. The 1500 limited-edition pairs of glowing replica shoes, modelled after the pair Michael J Fox wore as Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II, are selling like hot cakes on eBay. The 2011 Nike Air Mag is designed to be an exact replica of the fictional sneaker, including a glowing Nike name on the strap. But unlike the movie version, these shoes won’t lace themselves. The self-lacing feature proved impractical as the design used in the movie required Fox to wear a battery pack with wires running down his pants.
The new Nike modern version of the shoe, which is rechargeable, contains an electroluminescent Nike panel on the strap and various LED lights on the sole and heel. The shoe can glow for five hours per charge. All proceeds will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease research. Fox famously played Marty McFly in the Back to the Future time-travel trilogy, where he wore the shoes during a visit to the year 2015.