Walk a mile in these shoes

You may not be aware of it, but since prehistoric times, up to the Middle ages and today, many shoes have been made entirely out of wood. Cat Potter takes this material and models it with a three axis milling machine.

During her Master of Arts at London College of Fashion, Cat Potter experimented various traditional methods of design and construction.
This investigation sparked an interest for the use of alternative materials and technologies, not just applied to the decoration of footwear, but to their same structure and construction.

Potter decided to chose wood, a material that is readily available and among the first in history to be used to produce shoes. After some research she started collaborating with University College London using a three axis milling machine.

Thanks to this machinery she was able to experiment new shapes, at first glance more similar to elegant furniture than shoes. She did this by ignoring the usual formal limitations imposed by shoe components such as insole boards, shanks or toe and heel puffs.

Delicate parts that envelop the foot, whose form has been traced with a 3D scanner. The silhouette of the foot becomes the heart of the project, and has inspired the external profile of the shoe.











Photos © Alejandro Cavallo