Zaha Hadid Teams Up With Pharrell And Adidas For A New Sneaker Design

Renowned architect Zaha Hadid is no stranger to shoe design—in 2012 she paired up with the experimental footwear company United Nude to produce the futuristic, 3-D printed Nova shoe. Now, the starchitect is collaborating with Pharrell Williams on a much tamer design: an Adidas trainer for the musician’s “Supershell” collection.

Hadid, who is most famous for her daring and hyper-modern buildings—like Beijing’s Galaxy Soho and the Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Center—was one of a handful of artists that Pharrell asked to reimagine the Adida’s Shelltoe. Offered in both black and white, the shoe features Hadid’s signature parametric curves carved into the rubber cap that covers the toe of the shoe. Glimpse her version of the classic Adidas sneaker in the video above.

“The kinds of shapes and kinds of structures that she transcribes from her mind’s imagination—I think that Zaha’s designs are just like her buildings, they augment reality forever,” Williams says. “I feel like with the Supershell, she created—while using the dimensions of the shoe—cast shadows that weren’t necessarily there.”

In a 2012 article for Co.Design, Hadid said that she liked working in fashion because “it contains the mood of the moment, like music, literature, and art, whereas architecture is a very long process.”