Holy rich people, Batman! Netflix and New Balance have teamed up for a limited edition pair of sneakers that celebrates the upcoming release of Adam McKay’s Don’t Look UpOpens in a new tab and they cost $13,200. The shoes do contain real meteorite fragments, however, which would be a perfect match for anybody with an $8,600 T. rex-fossil phoneOpens in a new tab.
DesignTAXIOpens in a new tab reported on the new, pricey pair of kicks, which help market McKay’s new satirical romp. The film, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, sees two low-level astronomers embark on a massive media tour to warn humankind of impending doom from an approaching comet. Inspired by the film, the shoes contain small pieces of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite; one that a geologist found near the settlement of Seymchan in Russia in the ’60s.
According to Sotheby’sOpens in a new tab the one-of-a-kind pair of shoes are Balance 550s, a style of basketball shoe from the company that’s simple and retro. Along the sides of the white shoes Manchester-based sneaker designer Matt Burgess of MattB CustomsOpens in a new tab has emblazoned the New Balance “N”s and jagged side swoops—our term—with small slivers of the meteorite.
The pallasite meteorite bits—pallasites are a class of stony-iron meteorite—glimmer thanks to olivine and peridot, minerals and gems that twinkle from olive-green to gray to emerald colors. Sotheby’s notes the shiny crystalline chunksOpens in a new tab are the result of small amounts of the original meteorite’s stony mantle becoming suspended in the molten metal of its iron-nickel core.
As for the specifics, none of them look good for prospective buyers. The Don’t Look Up shoes, for example, apparently are only available in one size: 10. (Literally, Sotheby’s just saysOpens in a new tab “US size 10” for size. Nothing else.) Sotheby’s will also sell the shoes via its Buy Now platform—at 12 p.m. ET on December 17—which means there will be no auction. They’ll donate partial proceeds to the World Wildlife Fund. We can all, however, still watch Don’t Look Up when it comes out on Netflix on December 24. Or just wait around for more space rocks to hit EarthOpens in a new tab for more shoe material.
