Culture Reebok and Botter unveil vibrant 3D-printed trainers informed by seashells

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Models in the latest menswear show from Dutch brand Botter at Paris Fashion Week wore 3D-printed trainers with ridged soles, created in collaboration with sportswear company Reebok.

The colourful Reebok x Botter Sneaker was produced by technology brand HP in Barcelona using a Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer.

The trainer, which comes in either solid block colours or two-toned gradients, is a crossover between Botter's Banker shoe and Reebok's football boot silhouette.

Its chunky, ridged sole takes cues from the shell of the murex sea snail, which is known for its elaborate whorled shape.
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The shoes were worn by Botter models at Paris Fashion Week
"The design started with a structure that mimicked seashell growth," Botter said.


"We ended on the murex seashell as the final design inspiration. We loved that this was an object that the Greek goddess Venus used to comb her hair."

The Reebok x Botter Sneaker was developed and manufactured using advanced computational techniques and produced in only 15 days – from the first collaborative call to the catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week.

To manufacture the shoe, a layer of grey thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) is inserted into an industrial HP Jet Fusion 5200 3D printer.

The printer uses a liquid binder to help fuse the different layers of TPU together, while a powder bed provides a kind of scaffold to support the different parts of the shoe as they are being printed.

Once completed, the trainer is removed from the powder bed and the parts are cleaned and finished.
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Each shoe was hand-painted after being printed
Each shoe worn in the show was hand-painted in colours to complement the nautical and coral tones featured throughout Botter's Autumn Winter 2023 collection.

According to HP, the company's Multi Jet Fusion printing technology makes the manufacturing process faster than traditional footwear manufacturing processes.
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Its shape was informed by seashells
"HP's solution can drastically reduce the development and production time that is typical in the footwear industry," François Minec, the company's global head of polymers, told Dezeen.

"The benefits are the speed and agility around product development and the freedom of the design process, which offers many possibilities around personalisation."

Botter also presented bags made from recycled bicycle saddles and T-shirts printed with images of fish throughout the show, using colours that the brand associates with the Caribbean Sea.

"This season we wanted to propose the winter version of our colour palette," the brand said, "embracing more earthy tones together with the acid colours of corals and fishes you find in the darkest hours, in the deepest waters."

Reebok and Botter are the latest in a slew of companies to release 3D-printed trainers.

Previous models include the Adidas Futurecraft sneaker, which has a 3D-printed sole, and Nike's Air Zoom Alphafly, which has a 3D-printed upper.
 
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"The benefits are the speed and agility around product development and the freedom of the design process, which offers many possibilities around personalisation."
The benefits ought to be related to reducing strain on the foot, increasing potential running speed, making it cheaper and use less materials, etc.
 
Hideous as these sneakers may be, It won't be long until you or I could design and print our own shoes. Once consumer level 3D printers can consistently do things like that, 3D printers will become closer to a standard household appliance and less like a novelty item for shitting out plastic boats or reddit memes.
 
These look like shit. What happens if you walk anywhere with actual dirt on the ground? What if you are walking around the city and step on a turd? How the fuck are these gonna stay clean and NOT gonna just accumulate mud and trash and dust and shit on those huge ass fucking gaps?
 
And I thought the feet on Warframes looked silly. I wouldn't wear those as a joke.
 
Sorry Reebok, only Yeezy and Virgil Abloh could get away with niche radically designed garbage shoes, made by better brands (Adidas and Nike), better luck next time.
Keep releasing Pump Omni's and OG Shaq-Attaq's tho, those are kino and rad.
 
"Hey niggers! Wanna look like the stupidest looking nigger on the block?! Wanna have all the other niggers say "Damn look at that nigger!' before they beat the shit out of you and take your shoes? Well leave those Nikes in the closet, forget about those Yeezys (those are antisemetic) because we have the most brightly colored and absolutely hideous looking shoes on the block! Your assault victims will have no problem pulling you out of a line up in these!"
 
They're hideous and you are going to have all kinds of crud stuck between the waves of material. Invest in several extra toothbrushes.
 
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So is this like typical "high fashion" shit where the actual fashionability is secondary to the fact that it's really just a stress-test for the artists' capabilities or is this supposed to be an actual product?
 
Obligatory old school for this one, "I just have one question for you, WHAT ARE THOOOOOSE?"
 
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