Click Some Style on Your Kicks

Mano ten Napel | @Mano10Napel

My favorite word of 2015, merges Sneaker and Technology to make SneakerTech. It is a tech development that gives you the space to click some style on your kicks, keeping them fresh and in line with your personal style.

Shiftwear is a brand that aims to make customizing your own sneakers from your smartphone a reality. Since launching their Indiegogo campaign, Shiftwear have already blown up their original goal of $25k by raising over 300% within a week. Now their objective at this stage is to finish their prototype and to move ShiftWear into mass production.

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The E Ink display makes it possible to choose your own custom designs from the Shiftwear app. The coolest thing about these shoes is that they are not only just going to show you a particular static design and/or images, they also have the ability to show animations. This is a design feature that will open up a whole new way of looking at how fashion is merging with technology.

I never thought it is possible to imagine displaying everything that fits on a screen on to your shoes. It basically gives you the power to choose your own way of expressing yourself. Isn’t that what fashion is all about in the first place? When it comes to Shiftwear’s business model, it is a well thought out plan which will  compliment their shoe designing app that will function as a marketplace where designers can sell their design. This is a great opportunity for Shiftwear to monetize on it’s social designers network as well.

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Displaying these animations is going to need some serious battery power, a problem that Shiftwear has already thought about. They are planning to create a wireless charging functionality called “Walk to Charge”. It will subsequently charge up your kick’s battery with each step that you take. The New York based startup is claiming that the battery life can last up to 30 days, for whatever that is worth. It sounds like quite a task but what sneakerhead would not want to believe that such freedom of design is available for the taking. Also, the onboard tech should be safe under water up to 5 meters, which would easily make the kicks splash proof.

The kicks will be available in high, medium, and low retrospectively the L1, M1 and H1 Classic model.            A Pledge of $150 will get you a pair of low ones. The medium will be $250 and the high will hurt you for a whopping $350. Being quite a sneakerhead myself, I must admit that I am aware that throwing some tech onto a pair of sneakers doesn’t immediately mean that they will end up being a great pair of kicks. That being said, I can appreciate the idea of having the power to innovate and push the boundaries of my personal style through Shiftwear. They are a great example of a startup, seamlessly integrating fashion and technology in a way that gives me a good enough reason to checkout these bad boys.

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SOURCEImage/Video Credit: Shiftwear