When creators involve their past in design projects, a rare artistic encounter occurs, through the object itself, between the viewers of the project and the creator.
One such project was made by Noy Saias, a talented industrial designer who graduated from Shenkar Institute of Art and Design in 2019. Noy decided to return to her days as a ballerina and confront a product that is still made using the same traditional 19th-century manufacturing method – Pointe shoes.
There is nothing that dancers remember more than the terrible pain in their feet when they take their first steps in pointe shoes. Even thinking about it hurts our tows. And the experience is not easy on the shoes either. It turns out that ballerinas change about 100 pairs of pointe shoes every year. Not very eco-friendly.
Noy created innovative Pointe Shoes that are sustainable. They are made of a combination of plastics and natural materials. The ballerina can replace specific parts from the shoe, so there is no need to buy a new one, only to replace the worn-out part. And believe it or not – they hurt a lot less than the original shoe.
The most fascinating part of Noy’s work is the use of 3D printed plastic in the form of a two-dimensional fashion pattern template and transforming it to the form of the foot. It’s both beautiful, and revolutionary in the field of shoe-to-foot fit.
