2023-10-17 06:00:00
It’s time. Ditch your old high-top sneakers and invest in the 3D pump. Eco-friendly, ultra-tech and voguish, 3D printed shoes are the new essential in the streetwear world – and soon fashion weeks. Join the family!
Participating in the restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity by jogging in the morning is what Kiki Grammatopoulos, a young English designer in her final year of a master’s degree at Central Saint Martins University in London, promises. Entitled Rewild the Run, his initiative takes the form of a 3D printed shoe whose sole is capable of dispersing seeds by crossing the ground. Not bad huh ! Wait until you see what happens next.
Whether on the fashion week runways, on the feet of athletes, or to protect Ukrainian soldiers from Russian mines, 3D printed shoes are one of the most promising technological developments today. Appearing at the end of the 1970s, this process was only integrated into the footwear industry in 2015 by Adidas, for its famous Futurecraft running soles, using performance data. Quickly, Reebok, Nike, Puma and New Balance adopted 3D printing for the production of running sneakers, praising their lightness and adaptability. But this technology has many more advantages.
As it is an additive manufacturing method, shapes are created layer by layer from a single material – sometimes already recycled. We therefore avoid wasting material while ensuring simplified recycling. On the other hand, since production is automated, only the necessary number is printed. At any time, you can decide to create more pairs by pressing a button, so no problem of overproduction. Finally, automated printing is also replacing factories and labor – now mostly outsourced overseas. This technology might therefore centralize production units within countries.
BELLY BASKETBALL
Very quickly, the fashion world also became interested in 3D printing with brands like Botter (Netherlands) which, with Reebok and HP, created sneakers with ridged soles, produced in just 15 days in Barcelona. This year, it was the French fashion house Dior, which for its fall-winter collection, unveiled a 3D version of the Carlo, its iconic derby model.
But the expert on the subject seems to be the German company Zellerfeld, to which we owe the Puffer sneaker from the Danish brand Rains, a pretty puffy sneaker that completes a collection of oversized down jackets (opposite their “Heel Your Sole” sneaker created in collaboration with KidSuper last spring). “Conventional shoe manufacturing remains both labor and capital intensive,” explains Cornelius Schmitt, CEO at Zellerfeld, “which often leads to problems such as inhumane working conditions in offshore factories and barriers to “High entry costs for small brands. 3D printing is revolutionizing the footwear industry by significantly reducing these constraints.” In the midst of democratization, the limit facing 3D printing today is the difficulty of combining different colors during the same print. A rather relative detail when we think of the advantages that this technology brings to the 6th most polluting industry. And when Cornelius is asked regarding the future of this technology, he says he imagines a day when, with the advent of recycling technologies, buying shoes would be in the form of a subscription. He explains: “Instead of accumulating pairs, we reinvent models using the same material.” So, should we subscribe?
By Anna Prudhomme
The article GODASSE, GO! appeared first on Technikart.
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