Wouldn’t it be awesome if you didn’t have to run out and buy a pair of shoes that match your outfit? Better yet, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could change the color and design on your sneakers with just the click of a button?
Well, +rehabstudio, a UK-based company that prototypes and builds digital marketing campaigns and products thought so — which is why they conceptualized Shift Sneakers: a new kind of wearable technology.
The company is tinkering with sneakers that will transform shoe shopping in such a way that if you buy one pair of sneakers, you’re actually buying hundreds.
The way Creative Technology sees it, the Shift Sneaker will be comprised of conductive and reactive textiles so that the body of the shoe can react and transform using phase change fibers and shape-memory materials that enable them to change easily between selected designs. Shift Sneakers’ meta materials will manipulate fabric tissue in order to bend light particles ad even adapt to external variables like temperature.
The sneakers’ membranes will also be woven with conductive threads that can send electrical signals that react to human touch, and a flexible mini-LED display will be the actual surface that your colors and designs would be projected on.
Shift Sneaker’s creators want users to “shift” between between different sneaker designs using a mobile app that would offer new designs to browse through and implement at the touch of a button.
“The store will act as an open-source application platform where anyone can easily design, develop and upload their own packs, that can then be downloaded by all Shift Sneaker wearers,” according to Shift Sneaker’s website.
The virtual sneaker store would even offer different sync settings so wearers can sync designs with friends and significant others, get glow-in-the dark designs for nighttime running and biking, or just look totally awesome in a flash.
Unfortunately all of this is merely conceptual at this point, but Creative Technology was inspired by wearable technology that already exists, like Cutecircuit’s electronic-light clothing and thermochromic fabrics that change colors based on chemical reactions — so despite sounding fairly lofty and far-fetched, Shift Sneakers are definitely a possibility. Keep your fingers crossed and we might see these suckers at Payless in a few years.
