Sneaker Culture Exposition by Karim Rashid

Karim Rashid, along with fabrication and installation specialists Eventscape, has created ‘Out of the Box: The Rise of Sneaker Culture’, exhibited at the bata shoe museum in Toronto – home to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of shoes and footwear-related artifacts.

The gallery documents the history of the sneaker from the late 1800′s to today. The main challenge was to engineer a system that would meet all the rigorous museum-grade structural requirements of security, accessibility and durability, without sacrificing the clean, flowing aesthetic of the design.

To showcase the prized possessions, there are 32 translucent pedestals, a 40 foot long display case, an acrylic entrance screen, five integrated inset wall displays, and seamless printed graphics throughout. The lower portion of each stand has been constructed out of heat-formed, impact-resistant PET-G co-polyester sheets, with no visible internal structure – they still provide the high level of protection required for the limited edition objects.

A printed motif was carefully applied to the interior of each base to create a custom gradient fade pattern from white to transparent, giving the illusion that the shoes hover effortlessly within the light, airy tubes.