But Wait, What Exactly is 3M?

July 10, 2015

You’ve seen the name 3M before, mainly just on our site right? No? Okay, so you’ve seen the phrase 3M before somewhere else, maybe in reference to some wild reflective gear for hiking in the dark or safety wear for firefighters or whatever. But if you happened to be on our site, you saw those 3M laces on our site and were like, “sick, those are going to kill on my Air Max 95’s.”

Maybe you thought, “but wait, what exactly is 3M again?” That’s a good question, because unless you’re really into textiles, you might not know.

Basically, 3M refers to that really shiny silver material you see weaved in and out of our 3M laces. That silver cross weave is a retroreflective fabric that more-or-less reflects light back to it’s source. In bouncing the light back to its source, the material becomes really, really bright.

Your earliest memories of retroreflective material was probably the crossing guard lady. Think about that vest she was wearing—it was probably neon green or orange, complete with those wide silver stripes down the front. That’s classic 3M hotness right there.

Moving forward a couple decades, 3M material was adopted by the fashion world when technical designs became prevalent in clothing. The hi-visibility meets astronaut look was big in the late 90’s and like all culture trends, the 3M craze came back again in the late 2000’s.

Let’s look at a couple defining moments in 3M fashion history:

 

(Source: therareairs.com)

One of the first instances of 3M outside of retroreflective workwear (think back to the crossing guard lady) was the OG Jordan V’s. These bad boys came with a 3M tongue. A 3M tongue meant your feet were hi-vis whether you were dunking on Clyde Drexler or doing, you know, anything else.

 

Another big one was the fully lit Windrunner Jacket Nike did for USA Olympic Team. These things brought the fire, even if the athlete didn’t place on the podium. You might be able to find this on eBay for a couple hundo, if you're into looking like an astronaut. Or if you cop some of our white reflective rope laces and want a choice jacket to match them. (Source: tumblr.com)

Now we even have 3M laces, and by we, we specifically mean Lace Lab. So if you’re in the market for a night run, or a night out, catch everyone’s eye with 3M laces.

 

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