Solemates

Given the number of women I know who are hobbled by their footwear after a night at the dancing, or who lose their shoes on the way home, I feel comfortable predicting that the Solemates idea is a winner:

A group of Tyneside students believe they have found the perfect solution for women walking in painful high heels at the end of a night out.

The Newcastle University business students have designed disposable shoes for women, called Soulmates (sic).

The disposable shoes are made from two pieces of synthetic foam.

The idea is that women buy the £2 shoes from a bar at the end of the night and carry their uncomfortable heels home with them, preventing painful feet.

The prototypes clearly need prettying up some before they’re ready for sale, but, since the idea came from marketing students, I imagine the end product will be tailored toward branding opportunities for nightclubs, breweries and shoe companies, with the women at the local Ritzy staggering home in Solemates sporting Bacardi Breezer colourways, hip-hop girls donning Hypnotiq-hued foam slip-ons (over their box-fresh trainers, presumably), and fashion witches rushing the bar for limited edition Voyage Solemates, hand-sequinned by Rocky Mazzilli himself.

Fast-forward a few years, and nightclubbers will pass through a full-body scanner on the way in, and pick up a pair of custom-printed Solemates to match their outfit on the way out.

Probably.

Nightclubs wishing to pioneer the trend can buy the ugly prototype from Masac House, Newcastle University’s enterprise arm.

(Via Near Near Future)

Posted at 10am on 26/11/04 by Jack Mottram to the art and culture category.
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