lou moria manufactures minimalist vacuum forming shoe

lou moria manufactures minimalist vacuum forming shoe
all images courtesy of lou moria

‘today we can buy shoes for ten dollars and we know they won’t last until next season. even through they’re cheap, they are still very complex to manufacture and construct by using a lot of different materials and processes. when we throw them away, we actually throw pieces of leather, plastic, textile, and metal glued and assembled together,’ says lou moria. this is the justification for her project ‘last 21986’, where she has manufactured a simple shoe design using vacuum forming technology.

the fabrication type finds its origins in thermoforming, one of the oldest and most common methods for processing synthetic ingredients. thus, products that have been created this way, play a major part in our daily lives. the sequence of events begins with heating a plastic sheet until it is soft and draping it over a mould. a vacuum is then applied, manipulating the material into the shape. afterwards, the two components are separated as a negative and positive of one another.

the vacuum forming process

following this frame of mind, moria tried to think about footwear production and marketing in a different way: ‘nowadays, our interactions with the products we own have been reduced to actions such as opening the packaging, hanging on a hanger and pressing a button. most of our stuff lacks uniqueness, is duplicated millions of times and has a short shelf life. we do not take part in their production or even know how they were manufactured and by whom. still, we like our things. we’re attached to a watch we inherited, we are excited about a new bag we bought, and we are proud of a button we repaired in our blouse. in this project, I tried to examine our relationships with the objects around us through footwear. each of the shoes I designed allows the user to interact with them in certain way – one can dismantle them, to interface them, fix them, influence them, refresh them, and design them according to ones taste and desire. with every shoe in the series a different relationship is created – it can be short, long, intimate, mechanical, sentimental, or simply functional. either way, it allows the user to take, if he or she so desires, an active part in shaping of the relationship that develops between them with simple actions.’

detail of the heel

the quick and easy process hasn’t necessarily lengthened the lifetime of a pair of sneakers, but in comparison to others of their kind, they have their own packaging and the excess material removed to create the final forms can be fully recycled.

the shoe can be sold in supermarkets with a hole for hangers in the sole

all of the necessary perforations have been embedded into the design

the shoe is also its own packaging

packaged vs unpackaged

beginning to tear away the excess material

taking off the top

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.