Roderick Pieters' Loper shoes are assembled with rope rather than glue
Japanese footwear designer Roderick Pieters and fashion brand Proefhave created pairs of easy-to-assemble shoes that are tied together instead of using glue.
The Loper shoes, which launched on Kickstarter at the end of last month, were designed by Pieters and Proef to address problems caused by production and distribution methods in the current fashion industry. more
"We wanted to fabricate the footwear in a responsible way: less harmful for workers, lower carbon footprint and less waste, so we had to start from scratch,"
This prompted the designers to develop a glueless construction method, using a thin nylon rope to tie the shoes together instead. Each shoe can easily be assembled by hand and repaired by the owner if necessary.
Shoe factories are generally UNHEALTHY workplaces; mainly because shoe production often involves large quantities of toxic glue. For workers in the factory it is nearly impossible not to inhale the harmfull vapors that come off the glue. Despite modern air circulation systems. Next to that, glue makes recycling of shoes nearly impossible.
So, the absense of GLUE makes production LESS HARMFULL for workers and it reduces the impact on our ENVIRONMENT
The team also intends to prevent unnecessary transportation by sourcing the leather locally to where the shoe is assembled.
"We only produce the soles in China and add the leather locally." explained Pieters. "Instead of shipping one pair of shoes you can ship four pairs of soles."
Other designers have also explored ways that footwear can be produced in a more sustainable way, by addressing the choice of material. Examples include Adidas' prototype of shoe with an upper made entirely from recycled ocean waster, while Ammo Liao created bio-knit trainers from a single material.
