Sneakers Unboxed
A new show at Qatar’s 3-2-1 Olympic and Sports Museum traces how an athletic shoe became a cultural phenomenon
Words Tim Marlow
Sneakers Unboxed
A new show at Qatar’s 3-2-1 Olympic and Sports Museum traces how an athletic shoe became a cultural phenomenon
Words Tim Marlow
Helen Kirkum x Matthew Needham sneaker, 2020, fashioned from recycled and deadstock materials. Photo: Norman Wilcox-Geissen, courtesy Design Museum, London
As cultural artefacts go, sneakers offer an extraordinary insight into the cultural, commercial and industrial life of a society. A single pair can be the thread connecting a particular sport, music scene or subculture with a cutting-edge manufacturing technology. But in a world that moves as fast as the sneaker industry – a world that is always thinking about the next iteration, the next drop – there is not always time for reflection. Indeed, many of the sneaker brands themselves would acknowledge that they are so focused on the future that they have sometimes neglected to document, or even store, their past.
This is where museums, and a museum of design in particular, become important. Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street offers historical perspective, but it is far from a mere history. The exhibition strives to represent where we are today, including up-to-the-minute technical innovations. In fact, this was our original motivation for staging the exhibition. The pace of innovation in the sneaker industry is so rapid, and the role of design so instrumental, that it makes a fascinating relationship for an exhibition to explore. The number of limited-edition sneakers released every year has accelerated dramatically, and the trend cycles are now so fast – a matter of months – that traditional design production timelines simply can’t keep up. Robotic weaving, 3D printing, customisation, crowd-sourced design – all of these processes are revolutionising the sneaker production model.
“Increasingly, innovation is being driven from the street, by subcultures…”
It used to be that all of that originality and inventiveness trickled down from secretive design and innovation labs to athletics tracks and basketball courts. But increasingly, innovation is being driven from the street, by subcultures focused on grime or hip-hop, or by avid communities of sneakerheads. Style, in its almost infinite permutations, is now perhaps an even greater generator of sneaker culture than performance. Of course, all this boundless creativity and production has an environmental cost, and the sneaker industry is still in the early stages of addressing it. Design will play a critical role.
Tim Marlow is the chief executive director of the Design Museum, London, where Sneakers Unboxed first premiered, in 2021.
Some of the 200-plus sneakers that will feature in the exhibition at the 3-2-1 Olympic and Sports Museum in Doha, which runs from October 2025 to March 2026. Photos: Ed Reeve
“These are part of my Jummah [Friday prayers] look – they are white and made of cloth and go with my Thobe. They are also quite modern.”
“I picked these sneakers to wear today because they are comfortable for walking and… Well, fashion – they look good! ”
“I would love to own a pair of Dior x Air Jordans. We have them here in the shop but they cost 60,000 riyals – that’s a lot of money!”
“Me and a buddy go walking every weekend out in the desert and these sneakers are slip-ons – you don’t have to use your hands, you just push your foot in. They are practical.”
