Matching sneakers with elegant dresses is one of the current main fashion trends. Options are wide when it comes to both shoes and dresses and, depending on your budget, you can either opt for high street or haute couture pieces. But, if you're a knitwear designer, you may just go for WholeGarment shoes. This revolutionary technique, developed by Shima Seiki in the mid-'90s has been implemented in the last few years.
The system was originally deviced to facilitate the production of clothes and accessories. A garment is indeed composed of different and separate parts sewn together after a piece is ready, but the WholeGarment technique allows to produce one entire seam-free piece directly on the knitting machine (though some designs may require partial stitching).
The system currently offers many possibilities and opportunities to both designers and wearers. The absence of seams allows indeed to produce designs with uninterrupted patterns, create reversible knitwear without the added weight of double-knits, and come up with fine gauge rather than bulky pieces even for the cold season, while reducing the amount of scrap material by employing only a precise amount of yarn.
The system has also been evolving offering new patterns and options as intarsia or jacquard and has been applied to create various garments including headwear, neckwear, legwear and high performance pieces guaranteeing comfort and mobility for applications as wide as space exploration, furniture and home wares (like wine glass and bottle covers).
Among the pieces presented in the Shima Seiki section of the KnitClub area at Pitti Filati 75 there were also seamless footwear and uppers. Being produced without seams in one entire piece, WholeGarment shoe uppers offer a sort of second-skin approach, plus elasticity, and therefore improved mobility.
It would be interesting to see what could be the results of applying such technique to the production of customised shoes/sneakers for the sport and fashion industries, but also to push the experimental side of the system further and see if it would be possible to apply the technique to the production of safety footwear in special materials.
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