These don’t look like your average pair of shoes because they clearly aren’t. Designed in the metaverse by Cullan Kerner, the shoes embody an aesthetic that’s best described as ‘oddly refreshing’ and the reason is because it doesn’t stick to the constraints of regular shoe design intended for mass production. The process with shoe design is standardized to a great degree – you’ve got pre-set sizes, materials that are readily available, dies for cutting/molding these materials, and processes like stitching or gluing that bring them together. Cullan’s design process, however, is completely different. For starters, the shoes were made entirely in Gravity Sketch, a free VR software that allows you to design directly in a 3D space. Cullan designed the shoes almost like a sculptor makes an artpiece, creating in 3D space. The shoes are made for 3D printing – a process that still hasn’t been mass-accepted by the shoe industry. The idea is simple – Cullan’s model gets imported into a 3D printing software, and the printer meticulously builds the design layer by layer using a single flexible elastomeric material. This means you don’t need dies, and you don’t need to work with pre-set sizes. Each shoe can be designed to fit you perfectly, and they’re all made to order. Finally, 3D printing allows the shoes to look as wildly futuristic (some may call it quirky) as possible – case in point being Cullan’s designs. They’re absurdly unique because A. new technologies allow them to be, and B. why not, eh? You have to admit they DO look refreshingly cool!

Designer: Cullan Kerner

Simply put, these shoes were designed in the metaverse, and they absolutely look the part. There’s a rejection of convention with Cullan’s ‘Sudio Runners’… a mindset that plays in beautifully with the idea of the metaverse where anything is possible. Cullan goes on to call his shoes “functional artpieces”, and although they’re not in production, the 3D files are available as NFTs on Exchange Art for people who want to 3D print their own pair of wildly futuristic shoes.