The consortium of Demo ShopInstantShoe project (VII Framework Programme) presented results in Villena, Spain, at Calzamedi’s facilities. A new adjustable female shoe based on a new memory shape composite leather/nithynol material, is now available. The new material allows fitting the shoe to the foot shape, after getting anthropometric measurements through the Shopintantshoe portable scanner and modifying it through the “Shoptool”, a machine that complete the process directly into the shop.
The new InstantShop tool is compact, lightweight and actracive, and it is easily set up in the shop for the instant-personalization. InstantShoe is made up of the shaping system, an original designed machine with three diffeent lasts to cover all the size range, the intuitive configuration software and the foot scanner DOME, developed by IBV.
Six European partners had taken part in Demo ShopInstantShoe: two from Spain, Biomechanics Institute of Valencia and Calzamedi, two from France, Texinov (Lyon) and Nimesis (Strasbourg) one from Switzerland, Technoboots, and one from Portugal Ortopedias Twins.
As Juan Carlos González, Innovation Director of Footwear and Clothing Area at IBV, explained “we developed an innovating customization process directly in the shop that allow to scan client feet in order to get basic anthropometric measures and adjust shoes immediately through the Shoptool”.
“This is possible thanks to the new memory shape composite material made by leather andnithynol”, Mr. González adds, “Whoever will get the best fit, and if finally they don’t want to buy, the shoe will recover the original shape by warming it up during few seconds”.
Memory shoes
The new memory shape material allows getting fashionable female shoes that are fully ergonomic, comfortable, innovative and customized. All the process takes place in the shop, so the buyer’s experience is completely relaxing avoiding feeling embarrassed for the little differences that every foot can have. The entire process will be set up in every comfort shoe shop when the InstantShoe prototype will get to the market at the very end of 2015.
Feet diseases represent an important social problem, being the female population who principally suffer from it. The Hallux Valgus is the most frequent feet deformation affecting 20% of women at adult age. This pathology, together with others as hammertoes, claw toes, metatarsalgia and ingrown nails take place at the front part of the foot and are mainly caused by continued use of inadequate footwear, due to the mismatch between the morphometry of the foot and the footwear.
Trends on aesthetics and fashion of the female footwear compel to realize a more precise fitting to guarantee the comfort and functionality of this product. However, the variability in the foot size and shape among persons makes very difficult to achieve an adequate fitting for each individual consumer, and the result is, especially in the case of women, uncomfortable and unhealthy footwear.
European shoe industry needs to innovate for continuing being competitive: that is why InstantShoe is the project that fits the best in the comfort shoe market. In this context, the European shoe manufacturers and distributors can offer to the clients a differentiation in terms of individual fitting and personalization, both immediate and cost-effective. For that purpose, the shoe industry needs to identify, assimilate and exploit the new technologies to continue being competitive, as well as developing new concepts, aiming at applications of added value in areas as materials and services.
The DemoShopInstantShoe project has received funding from the European Commission (FP7 research programs), it is a direct follow on from the very successful ShopInstantShoe project, which came to promising conclusions in February 2012.
The scope of the DemoShopInstantShoe project has beeb to develop a high-end female footwear being novel, ergonomic and personalized at the clients’ morphometry in a few minutes, the operation being conducted easily by a shop assistant. This will need new footwear upper materials based on composites including a shape memory alloy, creating an innovative service of shoe personalization in-the retail shops.
The customization process needs only a few steps: the client first chooses a shoe model which she likes among the customizable collection in the shop. The measures of the client's feet are taken in the store using pictures taken and processed via a specific app. Then, by means of an automatic deformable last, the upper part of the selected shoes will be modified in order to adapt the footwear to the client's foot geometry. The upper part of the shoes includes a specific shape memory composite, which allows to keep the given shape: the client can verify the fitting and decide if she buys the footwear, or not. If the footwear is rejected, a treatment in the customization box helps the footwear to recover its initial shape: it is heated to a certain temperature. This whole shaping/recovery process can be performed several times on the same shoe.
The major innovation is that a client with light foot disease has a wide choice and can try the models in a shop, with possibility of buying the adapted shoes, or not: in this case the recover allows the shop assistant to reshape the model and keep it in stock. This is an advantage also for retail shops, where a new range of customizable shoes can be offered without incidence on the stocks level.
Focus on the Shape Memory Composite
At the heart of the recovery process are the Shape Memory properties of the shoes’ upper, that is the ability to keep a form given by mechanical action, and to return to its initial shape when heated.
The new designed textile is placed between shoe’s outer leather and inside lining during gluing process, and provides the shape memory effect to the composite structure The key component to get this memory effect is a textile including wires made of shape memory material called Nitinol, an alloy of Nickel and Titanium, which are inserted in the textile structure with a particular patented pattern.
Metallic wires differ from textile yarns by their very high stiffness which makes them not compatible with a traditional knitting process. As a consequence, machinery adaptation was necessary before being able to run the loom with these wires.
