There has been much hoopla these past 24 hours regarding the announcement of Nike’s Air Mag shoe, which is an official Back to the Future licensed shoe. They are based on those futuristic ‘power-lace’ shoes Marty McFly wore in BTTF II. Read more about them here.

Sadly, the shoes do not feature power-laces, probably due to cost of motors needed to execute the lacing gimmick. This has soured some people on the product.

I’d like to propose an automatic lacing system that does not require any motors. How it works:

Gravity does the heavy lifting. Place your foot in the shoe, which presses down on a spring-loaded platform (the spring doubles as foot support!). The platform locks into a clip located by the back heel, allowing the shoe’s wearer to walk or run around without issue. The platform is connected to a bunch of drawstrings – the type you’d find in a hoodie or sweatpants – which fasten the ‘ankle belt’ snugly. The shoe basically fastens as you insert your foot.

Here is the best part: that clip is accessible from the back, so to get your foot out of the shoe you step on the clip with your other foot to release the platform. It is exactly like how you take your shoes off now, only this clip triggers the removal instead of the back of the heel.

The drawstrings would be embedded into the shoe lining, so it wouldn’t feel like stepping into a net.