FASHION: WHAT U WEAR AND WHATS IN IT - SNEAKERS

the complexity of manufacturing in the fashion industry. We all know that a lot of different materials are being used in the products we wear, the most complex of them is, perhaps the shoe

first the lace - manually added. it runs through the lip of the shoe. lace is typically a polyester type of material. to match the shoe colour it needs to be dyed. that's also quite complex system to make sure that colours match within the product. some also have meta tips, So metal is even part of this shoe. And then of course we have all sorts of stickers and labels in here.

  the shoe in different parts.

the lip, the tongue of the shoe, and the upper, which is this part of the shoe, Those two things are generally separately manufactured, and then married basically in the manufacturing process.the tongue material, a pouch, yarn and thread Usually it's a cotton-polyester blend that is used to make this product mechanically sound, a polyester tape used for decoration. or perhaps leather,  But the leather is very thinly sliced and then laminated with a piece of non-woven, and it must be polyester or some sort of other plastic-type material.

Then you have the inner part of the shoe, which also is basically a laminated product.It has a core of poly-ether. a foam material that is basically glued to an outer layer on this side and an outer layer on that side, with different functionalities. This of course is soft, it's padded, so this gives you some comfortable wear qualities.Then you have another piece of foam and that's to give it body. Because you want to have a nice firm tongue in the shoe, it looks really cool.And then we finish it of with a nice piece of again laminated leather. then its stitched all together as one component.

polyester, we have a laminated product, a little piece of laminated leather, another laminated leather, some of the polyester-cotton yarn.  Probably some nylon in there as well and a piece of tape - five, six different types of materials in there. And this is just the tongue.

the upper part of the shoe and the sole. traditionally these things would be stitched into place but it could be glued. often stitched to give it mechanical strength, but every component here is clued. the side of the shoe may have decorative elements, they need to give you some protection against wind and rain. You have some materials that allows it to basically breath. Because of course your feet are getting warm and sweaty.another leather type insert. perhaps, some sort of embossed layer. Then we of course on top of that we have a piece of leather, which is reinforced with again a piece of non-woven, it looks like some sort of polyester, perhaps even polyethylene, non-woven material. And then we have on the other side the same thing.

  the heel part. complex, because the heel of a shoe is a very mechanical demanding part. It needs to support your heel property. So there is relatively a lot of stiffness and strength in this piece. So this has another different layer built up.  perhaps a polyester cloth  And that that is coded or fused with a thick layer in some sort of flexible plastic type that is basically heat pressed into the whole system. So it becomes extremely strong. Because you can imagine your heel moves up and down here all the time. and there is always trim. Little added pieces that are part of the finish. There is also a little bit of that in the side of the shoe for giving stiffness and reinforcement - 3d , it might even be a thermoset. however thermoset plastics are impossible to recycle.They are basically not allowed anymore in many products or they try to avoid these types of materials, And yet we have these undefined materials here in many shoes. Perhaps it's a polyurethane, a material that you can of course activate so to say. There's also an inner lining. and another foamed material for dimension and comfort. not to mention stitching. all of which can be automated or manually done. 

there's also the decorative elements. the eyelets for the laces, perhaps mesh - the need for ventilation. - If it would be only polyester it would be very nice, but again a mixture then there's a lot of glue. in order to get these things manufactured, people, most likely people by hand basically stick stuff together before they throw it underneath a stitching machine to secure it.There's also still a little bit of foam, polyether again to create the soft effect of the product.

 for one trainer we have a huge amount of products: polyesters, we have the polyether, the cell rubbers, polyester linings of different types of polyester, some leather laminates, , thermoset components, sticking, foam and glue. 

 so how can it be recycled? can it be recycled?

even if you were to recycle such a product,  the complexity as you can see it's mind-blowing. And we haven't even moved towards the sole of the shoe. even if you would be able to take the shoe apart,  everything would be polluted with a resin, a glue, a binder.So you have to clean these materials.

 how is it  designed and manufactured?

EVA expanded rubber material. is an amazing product, a synthetic polymer that basically allows this shoe to be soft and flexible and easy to walk on. with an air pocket here which is also to support you know the bounce in your step. But EVA is the material that does that over the long period of time, most likely injection-moulded or heat-moulded with these inserts - perhaps a bio-polymer And then together they push in this white, white-ish material.We have a very durable rubber, which is a synthetic rubber. Not a natural rubber. We have an expanded product with air, little air bubbles inside the rubber to give it that memory, the bounce. some sort of PVC, some sort of transparent polyvinyl chloride material

  the comfort sole, which again is a different type of cell rubber,  Lined with a polyester material, below that we have another material with a lot of little holes in it - to increase ventilation within the shoe so you don't sweat too much. It's all bonded, then stitched, laminated. six different types of plastics in one small area!  Polyester, nylons, EVA's, PVC's, other types of rubbers.

  "how do you simplify such a product?"

 a huge problem is the need for performance and durability, and therefore its inability to recycle usually. you can only incinerate this product and retrieve some energy. Or you can landfill it and then basically time takes care,with all bad consequences. a lot of these materials degrade slowly and leave  chemicals compounds in our soil material.

 We can say that almost every component has glue on it.So it's contaminated in any way. Many parts are coloured. So they are difficult to recycle because colour is something that needs to be pure and shiny. And when you start mixing things colours become reduced.We have most likely even a few thermoset materials in here. But we also have a little bit of leather. We have foams. We have a lot of polyester products in various different variations. We have laminated product, a lot of laminated product - often aligned with a rubberized cell,  a poly ether type of material, a composed laminated material etc. we have the stitching, the many layers of material and that is bonded into the lower part, the sole of the foot bed.So extremely complicated but often cheap. We have manual labour, we have automated labour, systems combined.we also have different sizes.There's about 7, 8, 9 different sizes for the same shoe. Different moulds, different cutting patterns, so difference lasts, so that's also extremely complicated.

 "is this the way we should be doing things?"

 We're trying to close the loop of fashion, we try to make products more circular. Should this not be banned? Should we not put regulation in on this? Can we do that? How does that measure to price?