Material Matters: Following Zellerfeld’s Footprints

Zellerfeld are printing out their sneaker dreams. The dynamic German company has pretty radical plans to redefine made-to-measure footwear by perfecting the ever-maturing technique of additive manufacturing – more commonly known as 3D printing. Already heralded by collaborators like Heron Preston, KidSuper, AMBUSH, and, most recently, Louis Vuitton – not to mention a growing legion of beta testers – Zellerfeld’s seemingly unlimited ambition could very well change how shoes are made and consumed.

Zellerfeld have also figured out a way to effectively break their shoes down to raw materials and reuse them to print new shoes over and over again. What’s most impressive here is the company have effectively figured out a way to create closed-loop manufacturing.

Because of Zellerfeld’s considerably smaller manufacturing scale, the concept of ‘slow fashion’ – the antithesis to the clogged release cycle – takes a literal turn, as it currently takes about 40 hours to print a single pair of shoes. In time, expanded design and production facilities could see shoes designed and printed remotely and within the same day. Despite the current lead times, there’s already a growing chorus of evangelists for printed shoes keeping Zellerfeld at the cutting edge, perhaps hoping it one day becomes the mainstream option.