New York based design team Studio SWINE (led by architect Azusa Murakami and artist Alexander Groves) were so inspired by the landing of the Philae probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that they wanted to celebrate it by making shoes. Shoes that look like meteorites fallen from space, of course.
They decided to use aluminum foam, which they note is generally “hidden inside high-end cars and buildings as sound insulation,” not made into footwear. Aluminum foam is just what it sounds like – aluminum that’s been melted down and then injected with a gas to produce a matrix of bubbles or cells.
Murakami and Groves visited the American Museum of Natural History to study the meteorite collection and gather images to make 3D scans of space rocks. They adapted the scans to make a shape that would fit on a foot and then used more traditional milling and shoemaking techniques to create a pair of strong, lightweight high-heeled pumps.
The finished Meteorite Shoes might not be quite the thing for everyday wear, but they are undoubtedly out of this world.
The Finch and Pea 