3D-Printed Shoes Mold Perfectly To Your Feet In Real-Time

The days of having a store clerk pull out box after box of different sizes could be long gone with a new 3D-printed shoe that is meant to perfectly adjust to your feet.

The ‘Auxetic Wear’ shoes, designed by WertelOberfell, will stretch and contract in response to the force applied to them.

The kicks are printed using a desktop FDM 3D printer with a TPU for durability and elasticity.

As the name suggests, the footwear follows an auxetic structure, which incorporates negative Poisson’s ratio and allows the slip-ons to mod onto the wearer’s feet. A negative Poisson’s ratio essentially means that when stretched, the material becomes thicker instead of thinning out as other everyday materials would.

Designers Jan Wertel and Gernot Oberfell explored a multitude of materials before landing upon additive manufacturing to produce shoes with the right amount of strength and flexibility.

Once it is printed, the body of the shoe is then sewn onto a traditional sole for comfort and usability.

The result is footwear that resembles a Chelsea boot, but instead of leather, it is made up of a honeycomb-like structure that moves naturally as the wearer slips their feet in and out of it.

While it is still early in its stages, this technology could definitely aid shoemakers and even the environment by cutting down the number of different sizes that need to be made for each shoe out there.

[via 3DNatives and WertelOberfell, cover image via WertelOberfell]