walking roots

What does it take to make a sustainable pair of shoes? It’s not surprising that footwear is arguably one of the last categories to take part in fashion’s big green conversation. A shoe is possibly the most complex item to create, requiring a level of engineering and functionality a pair of trousers or a skirt simply don’t. So when you add another element, like the obvious aim of protecting the planet, the equation gets harder. Or does it? “The idea is to do everything that we can from our side to do it better,” says Ancuta Sarca, a London-based Romanian designer and one of the key figures in the movement of sustainable footwear. “If you can improve something, put more effort into how you produce and have more control in who is producing… that’s what we should do.”

Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s way of recontextualising ready-made objects, Sarca’s creativity has always nurtured the notion of transformation. “Coming from a working-class family in Romania, we always had to reconstruct and transform our clothes; just be resourceful.” And so she was, as she took apart a pair of white and red Nike Cortez trainers that were “too worn out to donate to a charity shop”, before attaching their upper to a pair of red kitten heels. Just like that, the Ancuta Sarca formula to a perfect pair of sneaker-heel hybrids was born. “For me, it was really important to create something very elegant, sexy – so it has a completely different context. I don’t think I would ever just make trainers out of trainers. It’s more about embodying this feeling of being very feminine and creating something for women to feel good in.”

Since the prototype, Sarca has shown as part of the Fashion East platform, had her designs worn by the likes of Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Cher, and is now working in a way that allows her to effortlessly expand in terms of sizes and styles. Though not an official partnership, she has Nike’s blessing to create and sell shoes with their logo on them. “I rely a lot on eBay, Vinted and Depop [to source my trainers]. And there’s always going to be Nike trainers for sale on these platforms,” she says.

Having originally collaborated with two former Romanian factory workers, hand-making each pair individually, Sarca’s process has developed exponentially since the label’s London Fashion Week debut in 2019. She deconstructs all of the trainers in her London studio, and then ships the materials to Tuscany. “There’s a business that sews, another one that cuts, and another that assembles. All based there.” With bigger demand, her textile choices had to evolve, too. “In the first few seasons we used deadstock leather, but we realised that rubber is actually longer lasting. So now we’re just using new rubber, which is the only new part of the shoe. The heel is made out of recycled plastic. The leathers that go inside the lining are sourced from deadstock warehouses in Tuscany that have leftovers from other brands. The upper textile is bought by me – either second-hand garments or deadstock fabrics or trainers, basically.”

For her autumn/winter ’23 collection, Ancuta Sarca retained a similar methodology. Working with shoes and handbags as her main medium, she found a way to reconfigure vintage denim, as well as padded and fur outerwear. “If they have an interesting pocket or an interesting zip, I would try to highlight that in the product. I started designing from the most interesting part of the garment,” the designer explains, adding that this practice allowed her to minimise the waste. 

Looking forward, Sarca says that the immediate plan is to launch an e-commerce website offering sizes up to EU46, which other stockists aren’t always ready to invest in. She also hopes to expand into other categories, but admits that there are always limitations as an independent label with a sustainable ethos. “It’s about accepting the fact that you might be slower than other brands and you can’t really do more… You can’t do four collections a year if you’re very small.”

And Sarca is not alone in her mission. These are four brands finding their own definitions of sustainable footwear:

With poufs, swirls and exuberant silhouettes reminiscent of children’s drawings, Ugo Paulon originally started in 2020 as a venture of the mononymous creative Elise. Crafted in very limited editions, the label experiments with dyes, printing and moulding when giving a new life to found objects like vintage shoes and second-hand textiles. “It is built on a notion of how we as individuals value things and how much power we really have to elevate and repurpose something once deemed worthless or disposable,” says Elise.

She notes that a big part of her design process is working within constraints to explore techniques and possibilities. The shoes are designed and sampled in London, before being shipped to Italy where the factories help source the most sustainably available options for other components.

Just like the brand name itself, each model of Ugo Paulon’s shoes is named after the usernames of different eBay sellers from whom the designer bought some of the first vintage shoes. “I opened my eBay account in 2003 and I really appreciate how little has happened to the site since – even with all their competition today,” Elise says. Similarly, her mission for the brand isn’t to grow for the sake of growth. “The possibilities to scale up in a meaningful way which could be just as much about collaborating with people of similar values as getting to know the customer.”

Though he started his brand over a decade ago, Mats Rombaut has navigated the footwear market by always being on the cusp of its evolution. His mantra – and therefore the mantra of his shoe label Rombaut – is simple: vegan with a sense of humour. “I wanted to create a vegan and sustainable shoe brand that doesn’t compromise on design or creativity,” he says. “I wanted the best of both worlds.”

A major focus for Rombaut is textile innovations and discovering new alternatives to traditional materials, such as coconut, fig, potato starch, pineapple, cactus and apple leather. But instead of masking these materials as something they’re not, the brand often plays into the veganism and explicitly owns “green” stereotypes. One of the most popular pieces is a lettuce slider released in 2018. “We were making vegetable shoe sculptures to visually show our shoes were vegan. A lot of Instagram creators were doing this at the time; I wanted to push it further and make it real. It was also an answer to the fish shoes; people stepping on fish… I wanted to have a vegan version of it and have this out there in the real world outside of social media,” says Rombaut.

Today, the brand has expanded its line through inclusive sizing and unisex styles that include boots, trainers, sandals and the quintessential shoe of the moment – a chunky ballet flat.

As Rombaut’s younger, more accessible little sister, Virón is a label that is bringing ideas of ethical footwear to a whole new generation. “Here, the production system comes first by making sure we have the most sustainable shoe possible. Then the design follows,” explains Mats Rombaut, who co-founded the label in 2019 with Julian Romer. “We are able to make this sustainable dream a reality by making it more accessible and on a bigger scale.”

The outsoles of Virón’s vegan, chunky versions of classic shoe shapes are made from recycled rubber. Meanwhile, the insoles, lining, laces, cushioning and even the metal hardware are all recycled. But their mission doesn’t stop with the sale. “Since the beginning, we set up our supply chain and production in a way that allows us to reintegrate used footwear into our process and give them a new life. Now, after three years, we are proud to have launched the first recycling of 300 used shoes and samples into new outsoles. We are also setting up recycling stations with some of our store partners and will try to recycle other brands’ shoes and reintegrate them into our footwear,” notes Romer, adding that their main objective  – and hope – is for the industry to be forced to “rethink their mission and for the whole system to get redesigned.”

After learning how to make shoes for her BA, Helen Kirkum used her time on the Royal College of Art MA course learning how to unmake them. “Not knowing how to create sneakers, I deconstructed old pairs to find the patterns,” she says, “and it was through collecting old pairs from recycling centres that I realised the mass of sneaker waste heading straight to landfill.” After graduating in 2016, Kirkum worked as a consultant while also building her own offering – focusing on a luxury bespoke service which allows customers to have their favourite trainers reconfigured into one-of-a-kind Frankenshoes. The visual signature of Kirkum’s label turns the inside of the trainers into the outside.

More recently, Kirkum launched Palimpsest – a ready-to-wear trainer. Sleek and simple in silhouette, the design embraces its ancestry and showcases recognisable elements from each shoe that went into making it. The designer works “with a network of recycling centres who are collecting old single shoes that can’t be used, searching by hand through kilos of shoes, everything from fluffy slippers to steel-toecap boots, to find those with usable components, materials and leather.” While steadily growing over the years, Kirkum’s attention remains in the same place it started. “We are focused on creating products that work for our creative community and push the boundaries of how we can utilise and upcycle waste to build the future of luxury.”