Ilyas Darakchiev | GIZMODO.cz

Not your average shoe-customization project, Moscow-based Ilyas Darakchiev managed to completely uplift a pair of Adidas TR7 sneakers by redesigning its outsole to look positively monstrous. Titled the ‘Beton’ project, Ilyas sought out to customize his pair of sneakers differently. While people paint shoes, switch materials, swap parts like shoelaces, Ilyas’s project was more additive, if you will. Using modelling clay and its associated tools, Ilyas added volume to the sneaker outsole, giving it a thick, eye-catching, aggressive avatar, complete with shark-teeth-inspired details at the very base.

While the modelling clay essentially was meant for a strictly aesthetic proof-of-concept, I’d imagine outsole customization, to the extent that Ilyas pushed it, should be quite possible with the correct set of tools. A resin mold, a rig to securely hold the shoe, and some high-quality polyurethane and boom! Your footwear inherits a completely different persona!

Designer: Ilyas Darakchiev

biomech_sneakers_1

Forget about Nike’s HyperAdapt self lacing shoes. A designer in Moscow is working on “self-wearing” shoes. Inspired by how chemical reactions in a Venus Flytrap enable it to close down its jaws on any unsuspecting prey (remember, plants don’t have muscles or a nervous system), the Biomech Sneaker concepts borrow not just the idea of clamping themselves onto the wearer’s feet but even the aesthetic.

Designer Ilyas Darakchiev worked out two conceptual designs based on the principle where the shoe wraps itself around the wearer’s ankle the minute his/her foot slips in, and even went on to build prototypes of how the shoes would actually work in real-life. There are no wires involved, or power-supplies like Nike’s HyperAdapt that needs charging in order to self-lace (yeah, a $720 shoe that needs to be charged to be worn).

It sort of reminds me a little of Iron Man and how his suit snaps to his body, adhering to it like magic!

Designer: Ilyas Darakchiev

biomech_sneakers_2