Would you dare make a shoes out of recycled tin cans? Well, Studio Swine bravely took on the challenge and created a fashionable pair of high tech high heels.
This unusual pair of high heels was inspired by the Comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko. Studio Swine’s Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves were amused at the comet’s craggy surface, thus, they came up with the idea to create a pair of really out-of-this-world high heels design.
Granted a sponsorship by Microsoft, the pair went through the archives of the Natural History Museum in London and examined iron and nickel meteorites that fell to Earth after colliding with Mars. Unsing a 3-D scanner, they sampled the topology of these meteorites and combined various specimens in CAD software. Aluminum foam was produced by blasting air into the molten metal. A CNC mill cut out an ergonic space for a model’s foot which was lined with supple leather. And the result? A rocky yet comfortable set of shoes.
“One of the our favorite things about design is that it can synthesis very different things, such as meteorites and fashion,” says Murakami. “In the morning we were handling lumps of metal from outer space and in the afternoon we were handling Italian leather at the shoe makers.”
The Meteorite Shoes are set of pockmarked pumps that appear to be made out of metallic pumice, but according to Murakami, they feel nearly weightless. Despite their bulk, each shoe is approximately 90% air, weighs just over a pound, and is light enough to float on water. Studio Swine’s efforts are one small step for models, one giant leap for fashion.
