Reebok x Wallpaper* Design Diaries -- Fabio Novembre

While impressed by the science of the ZigTech sole, Italian designer Fabio Novembre was more taken by its form, using this as his starting point for the creation of his life-size black horse sculpture. Made of soft polyurethane sprayed, using a new technique, with hard polyurethane, it is light enough to be lifted by two people. The perfecting of equine forms has proven a pivotal moment in art history, but 'movement and power has also long been connected to the horse -- we still speak of horsepower even in relation to motorbikes and cars,' Novembre says. 'So the horse became a strong motif for me.' The resulting artwork was, for the designer, also about the process and power of abstraction. Just as, he reckons, the designers of the ZigTech tried to abstract a sense of movement in the final form of the shoe's sole (quite aside from any performance benefit it brings), so he has sought to do so with idea of the horse, through the use of a wave form. 'Waves, of course, suggest the transmission of energy, through water, as sound and light,' Novembre adds. 'In fact, the literal translation of the Italian for a sea wave is "big horse". That's only just occurred to me.'