Bukayo Saka's World Cup boot is a standout just for how it looks. There's also a special detail on the heel.
The boot that Bukayo Saka is wearing at the World Cup changes its appearance as he plays. The Furon Elite FG v9 from the new Stone Island collection with New Balance reacts to heat: as the temperature rises, a pattern travels across the upper. Stone Island has used heat-reactive fabrics in its fashion for years, on jackets whose colour shifts with heat or cold. Now the technology sits on a football boot for the first time.
The most striking detail, though, is on the heel. On the standard retail model, that's where the Stone Island compass sits. People know this badge from the brand's jackets, and from the terraces of English stadiums, where Stone Island has been a cult name for decades. On Saka's pair, it's missing. In its place is his own mark, a “BS” with a lightning bolt.
The detail shows the standing Saka has reached. At 24, the Arsenal winger is not just an international, but a brand in his own right. New Balance signed him early and is building him into one of its most important faces. A personal logo on the boot, in the spot reserved for the brand's own mark, is something only the biggest names in sport get.
What makes Saka's Furon by Stone Island and New Balance special
Behind it stands a collection that brings together the football boot and fashion, two things that long had nothing to do with each other. Stone Island stands for technical fabrics and for an audience that has worn the brand on the terraces since the eighties, long before it arrived in the fashion magazines. New Balance supplies the boot itself: fast, close-fitting, the Furon as you know it. The heat-reactive Furon is the most eye-catching piece of this collaboration. At England's 4-2 win over Croatia to open the World Cup, Saka wore it in Dallas, in front of millions.
Saka's version with his own mark remains a one-off for now. The Furon has been available since 4 June for 295 euros at stoneisland.com, with the compass on the heel.
