Econ_May_26

74 Science and technology

The Economist

May 26th 2018

MONG the boutiques in the canal dis-

trict of Amsterdam is a shoe shop,

called

-21, that has a selection of stylish

footwear in the window. A select group of

customers were recently invited there to

have their feet scanned by a laser, and then

to spend 30 secondswalkingonamodified

treadmill in a special pair of shoes stuffed

withaccelerometers, pressure gauges, ther-

mometers and hygrometers. All this gener-

ated awealthofdata, whichwas displayed

on a large screen along with a model of

how thewalker’s feet weremoving.

From these data an algorithm deter-

mined the ideal soles for the customer’s

shoes. Upstairs, a couple of 3

printers be-

ganhummingaway tomake those soles. In

about two hours they were ready to be fit-

ted to a new pair of shoes, uniquely tai-

lored to each person’s feet.

Some level of customisation is nothing

newfor buyers of apparel. But there is a big

difference between clothes, which are rela-

tively straightforward to tailor and alter,

and shoes, which are solid and composed

of lots of materials that require different

skills and special equipment to produce. It

is possible to acquire orthopaedic and spe-

cialist shoes, suchas ski boots, inwhich the

soles have been shaped to suit an individ-

ual’s feet. Completely tailor-made shoes

are also available if you have deep pockets

and are patient. At the top end of the mar-

ket, John Lobb, a London bootmaker estab-

lished in1866, will happilyhand-stitch you

a pair of Oxford brogues shaped around

every dimple and bump in your feet, but

theywill cost £4,000 ($5,500) andmay take

six months to deliver. What was going on

in Amsterdam was an experiment by

ECCO

, a large Danish shoe brand that

owns

-21, to bring bespoke shoemaking

to themass-market high street.

The shoe-shop event horizon

Lobb, and firms like it, make shoes using

patterns called lasts. These are solid blocks

ofwood carved precisely into the shape of

a customer’s feet. The time and labour re-

quired to create these lasts explain the cost

and tardiness of the finished product.

Though

ECCO

still uses shoes made in

standard sizes, at least for now, it custo-

mises themidsole. This is the part of a shoe

that fits between the outsole (the bottom

of the shoe that comes into contact with

the ground) and the insole (on which the

foot rests). The midsole is the functional

heart of a shoe, says Patrizio Carlucci, the

head of

ECCO

’s Innovation Lab, which is

in charge of the project. On the basis of the

laser scans, of data from the shoe sensors

and treadmill tests, and of information

about the customer (someone who stands

around a lot may require a softer feel than

does another who walks everywhere), in-

dividualised left and right midsoles are en-

gineered to suit the person concerned.

Once themidsole designs are complete,

the computer file describing them is trans-

ferred to the 3

printers. These are made

by a firm called German RepRap and are

adapted to print a type of silicone devel-

oped by the Dow Chemical Company for

this purpose. The printers build layers of

silicone into hundreds of closely packed

cells. The shape and size of each cell varies

throughout the midsole, to provide the re-

quired distribution ofsupport.When com-

plete, the midsoles are inserted into a pair

of shoes chosen by the customer.

Further trials of the production system,

which

ECCO

calls Quant-

, will be held in

-21 later this year and at other stores

around the world as the company contin-

ues to develop the process and take ac-

count of feedback from customers who

take part. At themoment,

ECCO

is charging

a premium of around €100 ($120) or so on

topofthe price ofthe shoes for the bespoke

sole-designing service. If all goes well,

Quant-

could be introduced in some

stores forwalk-in customers.

Other shoemakers are also trying new

production techniques. Big names such as

Nike and Adidas are printing some of the

components that go into their high-end

trainers, although individual customisa-

tion has largely been limited to making

running shoes for top athletes.

Smaller concerns, too, are showing an

interest in bespoke automation. In Milan

Andrea and Francesco Carpineti, and their

colleague Michele Luconi, are trying to

blend the new with the old. Their startup,

Design Italian Shoes (

DIS

), provides shoe

shops with a device they call the Totem

Touch Screen. Customers place their feet in

the bottom of this device to have them

scanned. They then use a touchscreen to

select a style of shoe and to customise it,

fromcolours tomaterials, types ofsole and

even the eyelets and laces. Some 50mcom-

binations are available. Personal mono-

grams and inscriptions can be added.

Instead of sending the design to a 3

printer,

DIS

passes it to a group of artisan

shoemakers in the “shoes valley” of Le

Marche, a region in eastern Italy that is

famous for its cobblers. Which craftsman a

pair of shoes is assigned to depends on the

style to be made, for each has his specific

areas of expertise. He will then make the

shoes by hand, using a pair of existing lasts

that are the closest match available to the

data from the Totem. The Carpineti broth-

ers claim that the firm can, in this way, rus-

tle up a pair of handmade Oxfords in as lit-

tle as ten days, for about €360—less than a

tenth of Lobb’s price. The company hopes

to offer completelybespoke sizes eventual-

ly, using feet scans to create digital lasts,

which would generate patterns for leather

and other components of a shoe.

The company decided to adopt this

marriage of high-tech and low-tech, says

Andrea Carpineti, to help preserve shoe-

making jobs in Le Marche. So far, 15 shoe

shops in Europe have Totems installed,

and he expects the devices to be in several

hundred stores in China soon. One way or

another, then, shoemakers are striding to-

wards a bespoke future.

Shoemaking

A load of new cobblers

AMSTERDAM

Bringing bespoke footwear to the high street

But now with lasers