3DP Applications

Original and Individualised Footwear Utilises 3D Printing (and other) Tech

Pavla Podsednikova, a post-grad from Prague in the Czech Republic, has based her thesis around customized fashion and developed some original concept footwear in the process. 3D printing technology plays a role in the conceptualization of Pavla’s shoes that are designed specifically to fit her own foot, together with other emerging technologies such as ABS vacuum shaping and carbon fiber lamination.

The project, with a slightly misleading title, which one wonders may have lost something in translation, is called “Instant Shoe.” It originated from Pavla’s frustration at the mass produced products all around her. Indeed, she says: “In the times of mass-production of everyday items, I feel the need to find a way back to their customisation and individualisation.”

The starting point of the project was Pavla producing casts of her own feet from which she created new shoe concepts that were specifically customized to her exact proportions. From this she took the idea forward proposing that anyone could get their feet digitized in 3D from which perfect-fitting shoes could be produced. A further proposition is a library of footwear designs on the Internet that can be customized in terms of dimensions and/or aesthetics and subsequently manufactured by way of the enabling technologies as mentioned above.

Another element of this project is that these manufacturing methods could also eliminate the need for shoe components (upper, lining, sole, heel as well as the zippers, underlay or any other additional support) and the shoes can be developed “as one, almost sculptural, piece.” This is explored in two specific concepts as illustrated in the first two images in the gallery below. (Vacuum step 1, Vacuum step 2). The second series, which can be seen in the Walking carbon concept, is described as a “shoe skeleton” that holds the feet only at the necessary pressure points.

A further concept is Vacuum step 3 which uses the inner part as an exchangeable component so you can wear it as a pumps or wellingtons. The ultimate models are Footprint 5 (my personal favourite), which combines 3D printing with classic shoe construction and finally Footprint 6 which is fully 3D printed footwear showing that in the future the shape will not have to be subordinate to function.

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All photography credited to Tomas Mikule

Source: Behance