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When Is A Shoe Not A Shoe? When It's A Sign Of The Apocalypse

Muro.exe shoes are inspired by design, comfort, and the potential total annihilation of the human race.

Trick question: when is a shoe not a shoe? When it's wearable art of course. That is exactly what Muro.exe calls their newly launched capsule collection of sneakers, created using a brain trust of leading researchers in science and design.

Self-described sneaker heads, Muro.exe's team found most urban shoes to be sorely lacking. In an attempt to achieve the most harmonious blend of aesthetics, functionality, and comfort, a group of experts hailing from all walks of the design industry (except footwear, ironically) were pooled together. Known as The Council (don't they sound like superheroes?) the group is comprised of industrial design studio Ciszak Dalmas, biomechanics expert Iñaki Cid, fashion designer and illustrator Bruna Sedó, cinema and games concept designer Roberto F. Castro, design studio La Camorra, and Materfad, a materials library or "materioteca." Each had their own role to play--while Sedó was responsible for all the outré‎ ideas, Castro gave the design a contemporary feel. Materfad provided advice on what materials should be used and La Camorra worked on branding and the visual identity of the shoe, all tied in together by Ciszak Dalmas’ design expertise. Cid, a foot doctor as well as an ergonomics expert, was one of the first members of The Council, and eventually became so dedicated to the project that he left his clinic for Muro.exe.

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Starting from the creative equivalent of the tabula rasa, The Council met offline, sharing design after design on the internet, and spending 10 months from July 2012 to April 2013 coming up with 8 prototypes before they were satisfied.

The finished sneaker, inspired by normal running and football shoes, has an anatomical shape with a medial quarter that provides the wearer with enough grip without any chafing or difficulty in flexing. The material is finished in PVC and designed to be waterproof and scuff-free, breathable, antibacterial, absorbent, and made from recycled rubber. But it's the sole where The Council put the most thought. Made of polyurethane in an easy grip texture that actually strengthens foot pressure while absorbing shock, it contains a 2.5 cm heel that keeps your foot protected without looking like you're wearing orthopedic shoes.

The Acid Rain Shoe

The theme chosen for the first edition of Muro.exe is the Sixth Extinction. The Sixth, or the Holocene extinction, began about 10,000 years ago, and is expected to end as it began, with humanity’s destructive hand. The capsule collection contains three sneakers named Acid Rain, Nuclear Winter, and TTAPS, each representing a different facet of the man-made processes theorized to eventually wipe out all life. (For the uninitiated, TTAPS was a scientific team formed in 1983 with Richard P. Turco, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan, who authored a report on the environmental impact of a potential nuclear war).

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The apocalyptic theme represents the durability of the shoes as well as their forward-looking nature. Meaning, if anything could survive the nuclear winter, these would. While the fashion industry as a whole constantly reimagines the vintage and the retro, it was Muro.exe’s deliberate choice to move away from the past and instead concentrate on a believable futurism: the three sneakers look like they could be from a bleak dystopian with no hint of the overladen bombast that usually accompanies the fashionably futuristic.

This is just the beginning however. If the first edition encapsulates the end of all life, future collections will each pay tribute to something different, something unusual - a mathematical concept or a figure The Council admires. “There will be a narrative in the collections,” says Sol Faquier from Muro.exe’s team. “We consider ourselves to be a virus (.exe) that will spread, infecting individuals.” Launching at Madrid Fashion Week this year, Muro.exe is interested in seeing where they can take sneaker design in the future, and whether that future is dystopian or not.

Nuclear Winter Shoe

TTaps Shoe

For more on Muro.exe and a brief guide to extinction click here.