Sneakers Unboxed

What will you see?
There are four parts to the exhibition. Following the introduction, you move into the first part, devoted to Style. This is where you get to meet the young people from all over the world who have made their mark on sneaker culture. From the 1970s onwards, they have played an essential role in the sneaker’s evolution from sportswear to sought-after style icon. Discover the stories and the influence of people like Michael Jordan, Run DMC and Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier. The second part is titled Tipping Point. It focuses on the moment sneakers shifted from street style to high fashion. Around the turn of the millennium, sports brands, niche boutiques, small retailers, streetwear enthusiasts and forward-thinking fashion designers increasingly began to work together. The ‘collabs’ they created were at the forefront of the experimental trainer design that fuelled the rise of limited editions and today’s sneaker culture. Alongside must-see designs like the Yeezy 350 Zebra and a sneaker injected with holy water from the river Jordon, attention is paid to Off-White’s Virgil Abloh. You will also find collabs with Comme des Garçons, Y-3, Colette, BAPE, HTM, A-COLDWALL*, Martine Rose and Tom Sachs. Performance, the third part of the exhibition, presents the history of design innovation in the world of sneakers. Most of the sports shoes we now regard as innovative and ground-breaking grew out of design issues such as grip, cushioning, fit and stability – challenges that are still central to improving athletic performance today. Exhibits include one of the first Converse All Stars ever made, the Breathing Shoe developed by PUMA and the MIT Design Lab, the Reebok InstaPump Fury and the Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT%, created with and for the marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge.

Sustainable future
The exhibition concludes with Sustainability and Circular Design. The mass production of sneakers has made it the most widespread design object, but it has also caused considerable pollution and social injustice. A lot of designers have put their minds to this dilemma in recent years, resulting in material innovation, experimental production techniques and greater transparency in the production and distribution process. Dutch designers Elisa van Joolen and Peterson Stoop, for instance, work with used sneakers and samples that would otherwise be discarded. Other designers and entrepreneurs, by contrast, focus on nature-friendly shoes. Examples include Stella McCartney’s Loop trainers, each component of which can be recycled; Mylo – mushroom leather used by adidas; and the French brand Veja, which uses recycled plastic bottles as the raw material for its linings. The British designer Helen Kirkum, meanwhile, custom makes sneakers from recycled and discarded materials.

The Dutch story
The Sneakers Unboxed exhibition was originally developed for and by the Design Museum in London. The version shown in Den Bosch not only looks totally different, it also tells the story of sneaker culture in the Netherlands. This is the first-ever opportunity, for instance, to see all the collabs by Dutch company Patta together at a single exhibition. There is a detailed exploration too of the special connection between the Nike Air Max BW and gabber, the Dutch hardcore techno culture. Skate culture is highlighted in various ways, including a film about Fret Click, a Dutch skate crew that has had a big influence on the skateboarding world while also producing noteworthy figures in the sneaker industry, such as Piet Parra and Woei. Work by Parra can be seen in the exhibition, along with other Dutch designers like Studio Hagel, Elisa van Joolen and Peterson Stoop.

Public programme
A wide-ranging public programme with several activities has been organized to accompany the exhibition. Our Third Floor online platform will also fire up again for Sneakers Unboxed. You will find the SneakEars podcast there, for instance, in which designers and sneakerheads talk about the various exhibition themes. On the museum’s ground floor, meanwhile, the Young Design Team have their opportunity to respond to the show in the shape of Sneakers Under Construction. They raise critical questions about the sneaker phenomenon along with issues such as perfectibility, sustainability, identity and inclusion. Through an extensive programme in collaboration with young designers and artists from various disciplines, they create an inspiring space for experimentation and reflection.

Credits
Sneakers Unboxed is a collaboration with the Design Museum London and StockX, the global e-commerce marketplace for current culture products. Curator Adriënne Groen has compiled the Dutch version of the exhibition, assisted by Bao Yao Fei. The London exhibition curator is Ligaya Salazar and curatorial advice is provided by Leo Aslany. Exhibition design is by Koehorst in ’t Veld. The exhibition is made possible by the support of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Noord-Brabant and the gemeente ‘s- Hertogenbosch. The Young Team Design is made possible by the support of Fonds 21 EXTRA.