UNX2 shoe design unveiled in Milan‏ | UNStudio

United Nude today unveiled the new shoe design UNX2 in the exhibition Re-inventing Shoes in Milan. UNX2 is designed to dress the foot in such a way as to make its form partially visible and to highlight the mechanics of the foot and the visual effects that can be created by the shoe in motion. Ben van Berkel: “We were particularly interested in the kinds of images the shoe could create, both when static and when in motion. When the wearer is still, the curve of the foot can be glimpsed within the shoe and the dynamics of movement are suggested by the curving vertical ribbons that envelop it. ‘

However, once the wearer begins to move, shifting levels of transparency are created and the vertical lines create a staccato rhythm reminiscent of early stop-motion photography. The UNX2 shoe creates patterns of movement and produces a dynamic form of image-making through motion.” The ‘process’ of design is made visible in the final object: the digital strategy that was employed when testing the position of the foot within the shoe. So there is a literal transparency, but also a phenomenological transparency that reveals both the process of design and the processes of movement. The vertical ribbons and the hoof-like shape of the shoe elongate the legs and create an almost animal-like extension.