NEWS
Sheffield Start-Up Eradicates Shoe Sizes, while also reducing waste
F
yous (pronounced fuse) has invented a new manufacturing method called “PolyMorphic Moulding.” Utilising 3D scanning on your mobile and their proprietary PolyMorphic moulding technique to produce custom-made, perfectly fitting trainers in minutes, not months. We have all been there. You decide to buy some new shoes, which is a feel-good moment for many of us. These days you no longer need to go into a store to buy shoes, the internet changed that. That change gave us lots of conveniences, or did it? How many times have you ordered a shoe online to have it arrive, got excited to wear it, but then discovered it doesn’t fit? Well, a U.K. start-up named Fyous aims to change that. You only need to look at footwear reviews on Amazon to quickly realise how much of a problem online footwear fit is. This problem adds up to a lot of waste, financial and environmental. A survey conducted by Opinium for Barclays discovered that “a third (33 per cent) of shoppers buy clothes online expecting that items will be unsuitable before they’ve even tried them on”. The percentage is even higher if you focus on the footwear industry, considering only 1% of people’s left and right feet are the same size.
This innovation, Fyous say, will make custom-fit affordable and accessible to everyone. When asked how PolyMorphic Moulding works, Fyous said they could not say too much but imagine a steel mould (used to produce repeatable parts cheaply in large volumes) that can morph into different shapes without adding or subtracting material. The Co-Founders, Josh Shires and Thomas Bloomfield always thought 3D printing would fill the gap in custom-made personalised products, but unfortunately, the
technology hasn’t achieved this yet. It is still too slow and expensive with limited material choices, albeit constantly improving. Fyous hope to fill this gap with their invention.
The global footwear industry turns over £365 bn annually, making 24 billion pairs of shoes (3 x the global population). In September 2021, 24.3% of footwear was sold online; however, 40% of online footwear purchases were returned, which leads to a staggering amount of 2.4 bn pairs of shoes returned per year. For perspective, a lorry can carry around 5000 pairs of shoes, which means this is 480,000 lorries (if they were all full)
4 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022
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