Footwear Innovation Hub @ FUTURE FABRIC EXPO 2024

It’s been an honour to take part in curating the very first sustainable innovation hub dedicated to footwear together with The Sustainable Angle team for the Future Fabrics Expo 2024. Thanks to the innovators that participated, we were able to showcase a good mix of sustainable design strategies in footwear which included biomimicry, biofabricated materials and constructions, bio-circular / compostable shoes, design for disassembly and repair, upcycling, repurposing, and remanufacturing. 

You can find the two large mapping displays (that were printed across the footwear hub walls) in our Post-Consumer Life section. One illustrates the complexities of footwear recycling, and the other is a diagram by The Footwear Collective that represents opportunities in developing circular solutions collaboratively.

With exhibits ranging from experimental speculative prototypes, through to commercially available brands that signal inspirational new design journeys, the Footwear Hub provided a great opportunity to explore how we can design shoes in a smarter, more efficient, less resource-intensive way, utilising nature’s renewable sources, while instigating new avenues of circularity. 

With thanks to the participating designers and brands:

☞ click on the images for further info