A ground-breaking traveling exhibition, Out of the Box, showcases sneakers, from the mid-nineteenth century to the breakthrough of sports performance, to today's cultural icons.
Drawn from the collection of the Bata Shoe Museum and significant private collectors, museums and archives – including adidas AG, Converse Archives, Kosow Sneaker Museum, Nike Archives, Northampton Museums and Art Gallery and Reebok Archives – this selection is richly contextualised with interviews and essays by design innovators, sneaker collectors and cultural historians, providing a backdrop to the technical innovation, fashion trends, social history and marketing campaigns that have shaped the form over the last two centuries.
Out of the Box includes sneakers ranging from a spiked running shoe from 1860, a pair of running shoes from 1936, Air Jordan's I-XX3, the original Air Force 1 and early Adidas Superstars to modern sneakers by prominent figures including Damien Hirst, Jeremy Scott, Jeff Staple and Kanye West. The book also highlights sneakers and prototype drawings spanning the career of Nike sneaker design legend Tinker Hatfield, making this the definitive illustrated history of sneaker culture.
