One-piece 3D printed sneakers hint at new adidas project
Futurecraft and adiFOM lines could converge into a new, fully 3D printed Climacool model
You saw (and you probably now also own at least one pair of) the adidas Futurecraft line of sneakers with advanced 3D printed midsoles. You’ve probably also seen the newer adiFOM line of sneakers produced as a single injection molded piece. Now it may be time for a new chapter where these two types of approaches could converge in the type of fully 3D printed sneaker offered by the startup Zellerfeld. At least that’s what an – unconfirmed – series of photos published on Instagram by the photographer arab_lincoln seems to indicate.
According to various reports, the shoes were delivered to the photographer in an unmarked box, which would indicate that they don’t have a model name but also that they may not be an official adidas project. It could also just be a way for the footwear company to tease the new product and see if it can generate hype. The new product does look enticing and it does have the adidas logo, both drawn on the side and embedded in the printed outsole (but it would not take much to recreate it).
Assuming that it is an official adidas project, it would be interesting to understand if the company, after partnering with Carbon and service providers such as OECHSLER on the Futurecraft project, could be partnering with one-piece 3D printed sneaker pioneer Zellerfeld. The startup already partnered with several high-profile fashion brands, such as Montclair and Louis Vuitton, and could be ready to scale up on a large-scale production process. Or adidas could be developing its own technology internally.
Either way, as one-piece sneakers continue to gain acceptance, it seems safe to assume that 3D printed one-piece sneakers will become more widespread in the near future, as they can offer much more complex and unique and original geometries than injection-molded ones. If geometry and topology become the only ways a product can be customized, then 3D printing will be necessary both to improve the aesthetics and to distribute material where it is more needed (for example with a denser outsolesole and a softer upper section).
