Shift Sneaker Can Change With A Million Color Choices

The Shift Sneaker created by British-based Rehab Studio is a new, high-tech digital concept designed to appease the most avid of shoe hoarders. It renders, via a smart phone app, a million diverse looks in one sneaker. The app has other functions as well as aesthetics; it can transform the shoes into glowing reflectors when riding a  bike and notify the wearer via a glow as to running speed.

Shift Sneakers for BikeRiders: Source: MaxiApple

 Rehab Studio  and hacking advertising

Rehab Studio, a creative technology company formed in 2003 by Belfast natives, Tim Rodgers and Jurgen Prause, is devoted to building digital marketing campaigns and products.  With branches in Belfast, London and New York, Rehab Studio represents the fusion of one technology company (TEK2) and DFA, a creative studio.

Co-Founder Tim Rodgers: Source: Rehab Studio

Their collective spirit and energies are focused on a phenomenon known as hacking advertising. This involves a reconsideration of urban space with an emphasis on hacking and discrediting the current system, which bombards consumers with blinding images and useless information. Rehab Studio believes that advertising should begin with a blank canvas, so to speak, and that the very essence of creative technology space must always be fresh and new.

Hacking Advertising: Source: Sashakurmaz

The Shift Sneaker and innovative textiles

Rehab studio answered a request from Converse to "hack" a pair of chucks (Chuck Taylor All Stars canvas and hard rubber shoes known as Converse All Stars). Sneakers are a fashion statement in and of themselves and an extension of our clothing choices. The assignment was to use the shoes as a blank canvas and allow the idea to lead the technology instead of the other way around. They installed pressure sensors and micro-controllers in the feet and stood users in front of the display screen. Patterns created by kicking their feet were then printed directly onto the chucks.

The Shift Sneaker: Rehab Studio's Shift Sneaker

Getting the sneakers themselves to transform their designs is the direct result of smart and reactive materials. These conductive textiles have altered the standard state of apparel and accessories. Unusual properties combined with integral electronics create a new dimension in customization, design and function.

Why the sneaker and how does it work?

Sneakers represent the quintessential essence of running shoes and casual footwear. For Rehab Studio, they are the ultimate prototype that will actually make it possible for the average consumer to buy a single pair of sneakers that will serve, through their vastness of color choices, as a million pairs.

The Shift Sneaker: Source: Ecouterre

These sneakers are constructed of conductive and reactive textiles  that include: phase change fibers, shape memory and meta materials to bend light or react to the environment, conductive threads, which were woven into the sneaker membrane, pass electrical signals that react to touch and LEDS which serve as a flexi-screen for display. Customization is so drastically enhanced that it becomes a technological phenomenon in and of itself.

It is the Blurtooth-connected app that allows the wearer to deftly customize shoe colors, but it also allows the user to access a variety of packs, like the Running Pack, where the shoe will glow red, blue or green depending on whether they are hitting their target pace. Other packs permit the perfect match to an outfit or designer collection or even the ability to glow in the dark.

The future of the Shift Sneaker

The sneaker of tomorrow offers many possibilities both in terms of allowing the wearer to choose specific designs whenever the whim strikes and also the power to alter those designs based on movement, temperature or location.

Here's to the Shift Sneaker!
(Colorful clink of glass!)

Closing thoughts on sneakers:

Not obsessed with particularly Nike, but sneakers in general. I love them. ~ Idris Elba