Women want to have a great look in footwear but they would also be very happy about a more comfortable shoe that fit their foot precisely. A group of six European footwear manufacturers has developed the first system that produces a custom fit for women’s shoes while the woman is in the shoe store.
The heart of the development is a composite material made from leather and Nitinol. Nitinol is an alloy of nickle and titanium that has memory for shape. A woman simply steps on a template that is one of three general shapes for women’s feet. A computer analyzes the special contours and any imperfections in each foot and makes a pair of shoes within minutes. If the woman decides that she does not want the shoe then the shoe can be reheated and returns to the template form.
InstantShoe is designed to be portable and produce the latest foot fashions for women. The advantage is that a woman’s new trendy shoes are actually designed to not hurt her feet. The developers took into consideration the fact that most women do not have perfect feet and endeavored to design a device that would produce great looking comfortable shoes for every woman regardless of any foot conditions a woman might have.
The shoe designs that are available can be seen at the InstantShoe website here. While the developers of the machine that crafts the shoes do not make a point of it, there is no reason that a pair of shoes bought at one time cannot be returned and converted into a different style due to the memory built into the leather composite. If the device is as successful in Europe as the developers foresee then women in the United States may have custom-made comfy shoes in the near future.
