CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/20/2021

'Sneakers Unboxed' is here at last!

Featured spreads are from Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street, published to accompany the critically-acclaimed exhibition on view now at The Design Museum, London. Built around detailed conversations with people directly involved in the creation of sneakers, Sneakers Unboxed is a beautifully produced object itself, richly illustrated with iconic sneakers, drawings, sketches and prototypes, as well as glimpses into the manufacturing process. Editor Alex Powis writes, "Footwear has long been attached to societal constructs and cultural movements, ever-shifting in its coded meaning and relevance to humanity. At its most basic, footwear is a functional item built to serve a purpose. But place it within society and it becomes a symbol of cultural tribalism, outwardly telling the world what you do or do not represent. Sneakers in particular have condensed these tropes—and our relationship with footwear—and put them into hyperdrive. Operating for decades at the cutting edge of technology, sports performance and culture, the sneaker industry acts as an innovator and a facilitator for human achievement and progression. Whether it’s enabling us to run faster, to manufacture in ways we hadn’t imagined, or, more recently, to consume like never before.
Like any good sneaker design, this book has been created with a functional purpose. The world does not require more books rehashing the same stories of iconic sneakers from the past, nor does it need one that overly aggrandizes a small list of familiar sneaker designers. We've experienced that enough in the past, which has in turn contributed to creating a skewed view of an industry built by a few heroic pioneers. Like most things in life, the truth is more complex. Those pioneers, as visionary as they were, did not act alone. The success of any sneaker at any moment in time is thanks to a multitude of often unnamed team members and collaborators, engineers and manufacturers. This book reveals the collaborative effort of the sneaker industry in depth, for the first time. No person is an island; no sneaker is created solely by its designer."