Collaboration between Matthew Edwards and Xzavier Kunene.
South African-based designers, Matthew Edwards and Xzavier Kunene, come together as part of this year’s Design Future Lab initiative to lean into each other’s crafts across Fashion and Product Design, and explore the possibilities of a sustainable future – and present, in recycling and remanufacturing denim waste-material to produce a multiple-use sandal prototype and “one-of-none” footwear outer-sole samples; a sole that once placed onto your existing footwear looks to extend its use and life-cycle with additional comfort and durability.
The multiple-use sandal prototype was produced from denim waste-material – having been the output of thrifted Levi’s jeans within Johannesburg’s inner city donated clothes “overspill,” and explored various techniques of upcycling denim, to which the weaving technique presented by textile recycling and disability empowerment organization, Clothes To Good, became the preferred technique.
As a means of disseminating the “one-of-none” sample, we’d converted the multiple-use sandal prototype into a 3D model using the Photogrammetry process for it to then live within the Metaverse as an AR filter on Snapchat. Thus giving users of the Snapchat platfrom access to the “one-of-none” digital sample, allowing them to experience it on their own footwear, whilst learning about the process.
