From the Series
Rethinking High Fashion Shoes is a project headed up by Belgian designer Kristel Peters, who is interested in exploring sustainable shoe design. With 15 years of industry experience and exposure to production cycles, she is now looking for ways to inspire a circular system of shoe production by experimenting with new low-impact materials such as salmon skin, bacteria and mushroom leather, and sustainable methods of making shoes.
Je suis Alice is a project Peters recently exhibited at Dutch Design Week 2015. It proposes a modular shoe design as an example of high fashion that answers a sustainable design model. If the fashion industry starts to reimagine the way it designs shoes, this could positively impact on the million tonnes of footwear waste currently polluting the environment each year with toxins used in the manufacture of shoes.
Peters believes that designers need to start looking at how to design fashion in an enironmentally responsible way. By following the cradle-to-cradle model as a guideline, she encourages designers to experiment with made to measure, reusing materials, recycling, repairing broken parts and local production.
