Unpopular opinion, if NASA had to collaborate with a footwear brand, I think its best bet really would be Crocs. Not Nike, not Adidas, not any sports brand, but Crocs. Crocs make some of the most popular shoes that everyone loves to hate, because of their odd design. Their weird design is almost reminiscent of aliens, with the weird shapes and the holed exteriors – so who better than a literal space agency to collaborate over outer-space-themed footwear??
These concept kicks were designed as a part of Vadim Sadovski’s AI exploration series (yeah, I’m sad they’re AI too). It’s difficult to say what Sadovski’s prompts were, but clearly he’s taken some unique directions, from creating almost parametrically designed shoes to the classic Clogs-style shoes but with craters on them.
Designer: Vadim Sadovski
Vadim’s reinterpretations of the original Crocs shoes are by far my favorites. The shoes are famous (or rather infamous) for the holes on the top, which Vadim had the AI reinterpret as craters. The surface of the shoe becomes the surface of the moon, and you can immediately see its imperfect rocky, sandy surface that’s dotted with craters caused by meteorites hitting the surface because of the lack of an atmosphere.
Apart from the rocky mottled surfaces of the shoes, Vadim also experimented with sole designs, bringing an anti-gravity aspect into the shoe’s form. I’m a proud Crocs wearer myself, and if there’s one thing I love about them, it’s that they’re comfortable and flexible. The soles are essentially a part of the shoes, which are molded from EVA foam – so the idea of having a separate outsole is a pretty nice deviation from the Crocs standard.
Other experimentations ventured into a more different territory, alien to both Crocs and NASA. Shoes created using parametrically modeled surfaces with Voronoi-style textures and holes (beware if you’re trypophobic). The use of white and black enhance the space-theme of the shoe, which clearly looks like it’s made for wearing on the ISS or maybe on a colony on Mars.
The final experiment leans more towards astronaut footwear on the Crocs-to-NASA spectrum. With a design that seems almost pressurized and made to deal with the effects of outer space, the final shoe below could really be worn with a space-suit. Metal ‘laces’ fix the shoe to your foot, and over a dozen ‘valves’ replace the holes you would otherwise see on the top of the shoe. Both the Crocs and NASA logo feature on all footwear, really sealing the brand collab – even if it’s totally unofficial.
Sadly, these shoes will probably never see the light of day because they’re all AI-generated. Vadim doesn’t specify which AI tool he uses, although it feels like a combination of multiple GenAI tools like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and maybe some Photoshop Generative Tools too. Which one would you love to see a real prototype of?
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