“Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street,” a traveling sneakers exhibition staged by the Design Museum in London, kicked off in Taipei Wednesday, featuring footwear from local Olympic champions and international sports stars.

The exhibition features the sneakers owned or signed by some of Taiwan’s biggest sports stars, including Olympic women’s weightlifting gold medalists Kuo Hsing-chun (???) and Hsu Shu-ching (???), Olympic men’s badminton doubles gold medalists Lee Yang (??) and Wang Chi-lin (???), Fubon Braves forward Lin Chih-chieh (???), and marathon runner Tommy Chen (???).

The exhibition also features sneakers belonging to former NBA players Scottie Pippen and Penny Hardaway.

Another highlight of the show is a pair of 2014 Nike Air Jordan 6 RetroxSlam Dunk sneakers inspired by Hanamichi Sakuragi, the protagonist of the hit Japanese anime series “Slam Dunk.”

Ligaya Salazar, the exhibition’s curator, told CNA that for the Taiwan leg of the tour, she enlisted the help of some of Taiwan’s most well-known sneaker collectors, who lent in collector items from their personal collections, including a model from the Air Jordan History of Flight series.

The exhibition features almost 300 sneakers divided into four areas: “Street styles preferred by people in different countries,” “designers, brands and collaborations,” “innovations in sneaker design” and “sneakers made of recyclable materials.”

It also seeks to provide insights into sneaker trends by showing the prices of certain shoes on the sneaker trading website StockX.

The exhibition is being held in the main building in the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and will run until March 5, 2023.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel