24th September,
Karim Rashid puts a series of iconic sneakers on their well-deserved pedestals, demonstrating the connection between technology and design in a unique exhibition at the Bata Shoe Museum.
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Last year’s Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture exhibition at the Bata Shoe Museum was literally out-of-the-box where a significant departure from the Bata Shoe Museum’s previous installations was employed. Designed by Karim Rashid, the exhibit’s look was modern in style, featuring blasts of colour against a futuristic white environment that demarcated Karim’s iconic aesthetics and vision.
Out of the Box was the first exhibition in North America to showcase the history of sneaker culture and the exhibition featured over 120 sneakers representing the past 150 years. Highlighting iconic sneakers from the 20th and 21st centuries, the exhibition explored the history and culture of the sneaker from the late 1800s to today through a showcase of well-designed shoes inside 32 translucent acrylic pedestals, a free-standing 40-foot long display case, and five inset wall displays with custom graphics.
Rare sneakers from the archives of adidas, Nike, Reebok, PUMA, Converse and Northampton Museums and Art Gallery, along with loans from rap legends Run DMC, sneaker guru Bobbito Garcia aka Kool Bob Love and Dee Wells from OSD were featured. The exhibition also included the latest designs from fashion designers, including Christian Louboutin, Pierre Hardy, Lanvin and Prada, as well as exceptional limited editions. A particular highlight was the handpicked sneakers and sketches by Nike designers Tinker Hatfield, Tobie Hatfield, Mark Smith and Eric Avar.
Rashid’s exhibit layout, heavy on digital themes and shades of neon, presented a long series of curvy, colourful forms to express the primacy of technology in design. The exhibition’s main section, the Innovation and Design area, highlighted sneakers from four top Nike shoe designers though a special 40-foot display case. The adjacent walls featured large prints of the designers’ original conceptual drawings and sketches.
“I have always been very interested in the sneaker since I am a true believer of the age of casualism” says Karim. “As a designer I also tend towards the running shoe as shoe of choice due to the great advances in technology, materials, performance, design, and style. It seems that the opportunity of experimentation is endless. So in turn, the exhibition Out of the Box showcased sneakers that all had pivotal implications on the industry, market, and society. The design of the exhibition reinforced the leaps and bounds made by the sneaker and its place within the flux, speed and charge of society. I am so pleased to work with the illustrious Bata Shoe Museum to make this exhibition a reality.”
