When sneakers come full circle
Sneakers, sneakers and more sneakers! Millions of pairs end up in a pile at the local dump every year. A new Belgian company has developed a sneaker that they believe will prove to be a more durable solution.
Patrick Vanneste, a Belgian innovator teamed up with a designer and a professor from KU Leuven, and after some good old-school durable brainstorming, they developed a sneaker that should be far more durable than anything on the market today.
You could actually say that they designed a shoe within a shoe; an outer shoe made of leather or Belgian-produced linen, and a replaceable inner shoe. The thought process? “A sneaker that can be repaired lasts longer.”
It remains to be seen whether sneaker aficionados will take a leap of faith and embrace this new Belgian product, and what they will do with it, because the fact remains that “many sneakers don’t even get the chance to wear out,” as Ben Hagneaars, the aforementioned designer, has pointed out.
Indeed it isn’t easy to change consumers’ behaviour, as these Belgian innovators have realised, which is why they approached the issue from the production side.
What about you? Would you sneak a pair of reuseable and repairable sneakers into your wardrobe?