BMW wants to wrap your feet in X-CAT DISC - VIDEO

By CARSIFU | 29 June 2016


BMW Puma shoe (7)


MUNICH: Fancy this BMW shoe? For fans of the German marque and those with a sneaker fetish, they certainly do.

The BMW X-CAT DISC will be available in selected Puma stores around the world from July 1. Designworks, a creative consultancy under BMW, teamed up with Puma to create the latest addition to Puma’s DISC footwear range.

The project gave a fresh spin on how shoes should be designed. First a bit of background. The BMW GINA Light Visionary Model was a concept car from 2008 with a seamless, flexible, fabric outer shell stretched over a movable substructure, whose functions were only enabled when actually needed. Its interpretation of familiar functional and structural concepts questioned the philosophy of car design. Today, GINA became the inspiration behind the X-CAT DISC.

BMW Puma shoe (6)


The starting points for this innovative project were the flexible, ergonomic and lightweight GINA material as well as Puma’s reinvented, lighter and faster-working DISC technology. Instead of using laces, this system works with a rotating disc that pulls internal wires to close and open the shoe. Using only one thin layer of stretchable and super-light GINA material, the shoe wraps around the foot like a second skin.

Additional seams are no longer necessary and dynamic movement feels very natural. Since a new material not only allows new shapes but also enables a different way of thinking about movement, Designworks embarked on a new approach to motion.

“With the X-CAT project, we wanted to unleash the innovative power of BMW and PUMA. We have transformed the essence of the shape-shifting GINA car into a streamlined and elegant shoe,” said Puma global creative director Torsten Hochstetter.


BMW Puma shoe (11)


“The approach was to look at every aspect of making a shoe and to try and reimagine it. Freeing yourself of what is here now can be an enjoyable and rewarding exercise. Typically, it also speeds up change,” said BMW Group design senior vice president Adrian van Hooydonk.

In the spirit of GINA, the designers treated the foot as a kind of chassis in itself. They re-engineered the original automotive material to ensure it was breathable and sufficiently durable to meet the needs of a shoe that wraps around the foot in a single piece. Automotive design thinking is evident in the proportions that make the material shine – and in the simplicity that prevents it from competing with too many other design features. Fine, laser-cut perforations flow across the front of the light X-CAT, underlining the impression of motion while adding ventilation.

BMW Puma shoe (1)


Another design cue taken from the original GINA concept is the functional aesthetic of revealing the underlying structure when tightening the shoe. The designers also re-thought the concept for the sole and the Puma DISC, applying BMW engineering approaches to add greater precision. They viewed the sole as the engine of the foot, the driver of movement. This produced a unique design which was inspired by interconnecting gears and integrates both engineered flexibility and interlinked stability.


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