Are you tired of waiting for Nike to design the perfect sneakers for your tastes? Thanks to a new flexible filament from Recreus that can be used in standard 3D printers without clogging the nozzle, you can finally design and print your own kicks in a wide variety of colours. The only limiting factors are your imagination and sense of taste.
Most plastic filaments are soft and flexible until they’re melted and extruded. Then they cool into a stiff plastic that’s great for toys and parts, but not particularly comfortable to wear. The FilaFlex filament can be used just like the regular plastic material, but when cooled it remains soft and flexible, facilitating wearable creations like these sneakers.
Are they the future of footwear? In their current form, probably not. Shoes are usually made with fabrics and materials that are able to breathe so that sweat and bacteria don’t build up inside, and so they don’t get uncomfortably hot to wear. And these sneakers are probably not the most resilient to wear outside. They are mostly waterproof, though, and the fact that you can 3D model them guarantees you’ll have the only pair in existence, which could be worth all the trouble. [MakerBot Thingiverse via 3D Printing Industry]