London's Design Museum and Snapchat partner for AI-created digital sneakers

We’re not sure if you were aware of this, but we’re big fans of shoes here at Input. So while we’d love to hop over to London next week for the opening day of The Design Museum’s new exhibition, Sneakers Unboxed: From Studio to Street, we doubt that’s truly on the cards for us right now. Luckily, the British-based museum anticipated the logistical difficulties of travel and has partnered to create “Sneaker 0 by Snap,” an all-digital shoe that can be digitally tried on via a new filter courtesy of Snapchat. But there’s a bit more to it than just that...

According to Sneaker 0’s announcement page, it is the first to be “designed entirely by a computer using machine learning from a curated exhibit list” of thousands of sneakers, before being fine-tuned using the over 200 shoes showcased within the actual exhibit itself.”

Employing machine learning, the AI program then produced the Sneaker 0, named for the fact it is the “first sneaker to be designed by exactly zero humans.” And you know what? Judging from the results, it’s definitely a shame actual human beings can’t cop these anytime soon. Check out images below courtesy of the Design Museum, along with the Snap code to (digitally) try them on yourself right now.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that — Judging from the images provided by the Design Museum, the Sneaker 0 is certainly the sum of its parts. You can easily see most of the major iconic brands in the design, including hints of Air Jordans, Instapumps, Gel Lytes, and Half Cabs. The QR code-inspired pattern on the sneakers and soles are a particularly nice nod to the shoe’s AI creator, too... although we gotta say we’re a tad annoyed to not see any readily apparent Crocs influence in the mix given the massive uptick in popularity they’ve seen over the last year (even if Posh Spice isn’t having any of it).

Try them on for yourself now — Although the actual Sneakers Unboxed exhibition doesn’t open until next week and the Sneaker 0 itself will (presumably) never hit store shelves, you can still go ahead and try on a pair virtually right now. All any curious sneakerheads need to do is download Snapchat, then aim your camera at the image below to be taken directly to the Sneaker 0 filters. From there, you can swap out multiple colors, grab screenshots, and perhaps fool your friends into thinking you got some ultra-rare kicks in the process.