Shigeyuki Mitsui: The story of the legendary Asics designer

The young Shigeyuki Mitsui started working with Asics in 1984. At the time, the Japanese brand’s direction was far less specific, but thanks in part to Mitsui, the brand found its path and also its unique place in the ever-changing sneaker world.

WORLD RACE FOR THE BEST SNEAKERS

Starting a new job one day and coming up with a revolutionary sneaker concept the next day sounds amazing, but unfortunately the real world just doesn’t work like that.  In the mid 1980s, Asics was a very cycling focused brand. At the time, the brand even made their own bikes, which obviously required a pair of shoes.  So Mitsui-San started work on his first design, the Asics Camp Royal, released in 1985. Sadly, samples of Shigeyuki’s first work are impossible to find even in Kobe, Japan, where Asics is based. If they only could have known, how important this sometimes almost childishly naive designer would become.

The most important for Mitsui and also for Asics is undoubtedly the Gel-Lyte. The new decades arrival was marked by a race for the best damping technology. Adidas had Torsion, Nike was conquering the world with the Air technology, which still hasn’t been surpassed in popularity, and Asics were betting on their Gel technology. Sneakers were moving forwards by leaps and bounds in technology. However, Shigeyuki Mitsui was unhappy with the visual appearance of sneakers at the time.

“Asics at the time was and still is a company based on integrity. Our goal was always to produce high-quality, functional sneakers. However, the look and colors of the sneakers were too conservative. My driving force at the time was the vision of keeping the high-level of functionality and utility, but to give it a unique design.” Mitsui-San said at Fashion Week in Paris 2019.

THE BIRTH OF THE MOST COMFORTABLE SNEAKERS

Before the young Shigeyuki could be trusted with creating his own silhouette, he had to gain the necessary experience. He made a few contributions to design details for the pilot model of the later world-famous Gel-Lyte series. For the second silhouette of this product line, he was given way more creative freedom, and this time he was credited with 50% of the final appearance. However, the real test was to be the Gel-Lyte III model. 

Mitsui-San had always wanted to make untraditional sneakers. It was one of the ideas that motivated him the most on his journey as a designer. But during the creation process of the Gel-Lyte III, he quickly realised that the more innovative the idea, the more complicated the whole process becomes, and the results’ success is never guaranteed.

Maybe I should have been born 30 years later.

Shigeyuki Mitsui

The first designs were rejected almost immediately. The main obstacle to approval was the complexity of the sneaker, which significantly affected the complexity of the potential production process. “To be honest, I’ve always been a troublemaker, and the management wasn’t satisfied with my ideas for the Gel-Lyte III because they were confusing even to the product engineers. My ideas were rejected many times, but I kept pushing. 

The envisioned color profile of the sneakers was also problematic. “I went through Pantone’s swatches, but the color spectrum at the time was simply not wide enough. So I decided to mix my own colors. I made a few hundred of them and sent them to the factory.” explains Mitsui-San for SneakerFreaker as part of the 30 year anniversary of his greatest creation. 

THE UNIQUE TONGUE

The Gel-Lyte III model has a unique split tongue, which strays from all traditional concepts for this part of the shoe. According to the designer, a classic tongue appearing on the third Gel-Lyte silhouette was not an option. The idea of the split tongue first came from Mitsui’s superior at the time, who used the element on the LD-Racer model.

Asics LD Racer

The unique tongue shape was not just an artificial attempt to create controversy. The shape is in fact a logical and practical solution. Ironically, the standard tongue doesn’t correspond well to the natural movements of your feet, which results in a tendency to slip to one or the other side. We’ve probably all experienced this. This begs the question, why did it become the norm for the whole world and why does it hold a monopoly in the world of sneakers even today? I doubt we’ll ever find out – now back to Japan. 

WHERE INTEGRITY AND COMFORT MEET

The issue of the tongue design is but one example of the direction of the almost 40 years of Mitsui-San’s work at Asics. From the very beginning, he believed that integrity and comfort are what makes a good shoe. “I think this is the reason why the Gel-Lyte III is still so popular.” said Shigeyuki Mitsui about the growing popularity of his most famous model. According to him, it’s also thanks to the massive amount of collaborations for which the Gel-Lyte III served as a starting point. Just to give you an idea, at the end of last year for example, Ronnie Fieg presented a giant collection of 30 new Gel-Lyte III colorways, in collaboration with the store KITH. Shigeyuki even considers some of the new models to be even better than his own pieces.

“I’m still looking forward to new pairs in the future. Who knows, in 20 years, the designs might be on a completely different level” says Mitsui-San about the future, in which he plans on watching the trends of the sneaker industry from afar.

Kith x Asics by Ronnie Fieg „The Palette“

The Gel-Lyte III sneakers are a beautiful example of how some sneakers are not just shoes, but also works of art, that reflect the thoughts and opinions of the artist behind them. In this case, specifically the ideas of Shigeyuki Mitsui, who gave a series of interviews as part of the 30 year anniversary of the legendary model, revealing the background of the development of the iconic silhouette.

If you don’t like waiting for new content, you can read, for example, this article, which will introduce you to sneaker phenomenon and the person called Tinker Hatfield.