Confirming one of Kanye West's greatest fears, Nike Chief Operating Officer Eric Sprunk recently said that in the future, it'll be possible for his company to 3D print shoes and apparel.
"That's not that far away," Sprunk said onstage at the GeekWire Summit last week. "It's a fairly easy future to imagine."
Sprunk made the comparison to Nike's current line of Flyknit shoes. "This is a file we send on a computer, it goes to the knit machine, and the operator puts the file into the machine and out comes a shoe."
The implication being, one day that computer file might be manufactured in your own home. Of course, at the prices and styles we're seeing coming from 3D printers right now, it's probably going to take years for the tech — and the tastes of the average consumer — to catch up to the clothing industry we already have.
Here's Sprunk's interview at the GeekWire Summit in full:
