Ilabo Shoes - with Ross Lovegrove, for United Nude

Ilabo Shoes - with Ross Lovegrove, for United Nude

British designer Ross Lovegrove worked with Grasshopper software expert Arturo Tedeschi to create the tall fine mesh that shrouds the sole and the wearer’s foot like a curtain, and opens at the toe and heel. “The freedom afforded by the unbridled free form sculpting of advanced 3D printing is totally invigorating and emotionally stimulating; a new world of aesthetics that from the inception of the software, our studio has endeavored to be a the forefront of optimizing this potential within the field of industrial design for the last 15 years born out of architectural academic process and research into natural phenomenology rather than the self referential stagnating world of design. This project establishes a moment where physical innovation in materials density and layered matrix node structuring, are coalesced to enhance the sensuality of the female form whilst remaining clearly technological. Ultimately the shoe has been truncated to extend the perception of verticality and in doing so eliminate weight and mass. The filaments or hairs have been modeled using particle systems and attraction-repulsion logistics paralleling the bionic geometry of the foot. The complex tridimensional polygon mesh provides what is termed a watertight geometry whereby nothing is extraneous either in material volume or functional characteristic. This modeling convergence benefits from the dynamics of gravity and particle attraction hence the subconscious references to the cosmos and the greater forces of attraction and repulsion”.