Shoes aren’t one-size-fits-all, but German brand WertellOberfell thinks they could be. Using 3D printing, the company has devised a pair of laceless shoes that naturally adapts to the wearer’s foot.
The design concept for the Auxetic Wear shoes builds off the principles of auxetics, or objects with a negative Poisson’s ratio — think of a snake’s skin or human tendon — that get fatter and thicker when they’re stretched, instead of spreading thin like other materials. Depending on the applied force of the wearer, the shoe will expand or contract, giving it the potential to change its size.
