Lenzing takes Tencel into shoes
05/05/2015
Speaking at the Techtextil exhibition in Frankfurt on May 5, Lenzing’s segment manager for footwear, Marina Crnoja-Cosic, said the move into footwear had come about partly because her company needs “new applications for Tencel”.
She also explained that footwear companies, including Legero, had come to it to ask for Tencel to put into their shoes.
Among the footwear applications it has looked at with its customers, its work with Legero has led to prototype shoes using high levels of Tencel in their content as part of the Graz-based company’s Vios brand.
Sustainable development and innovation manager for Legero, Stefanie Stolitzka, said her company was paying closer than ever attention to the raw materials that go into its shoes and launched a prototype using Tencel in 2014, selling the shoes, a small collection for children, in its outlet store. “The uppers are leather,” Ms Stolitzka said, “skin-friendly, sustainable and chrome and heavy metal-free. But the laces are 100% Tencel.”
She said the initial collection had won positive acceptance from customers who have bought the shoes and that her company will launch a first commercial collection, for children, in 2016. “Between 70% and 80% of the fabric inside the shoes will be Tencel,” she said.
She and Ms Crnoja-Cosic wore prototype summer canvas-style shoes for the presentation, with the upper made from cotton and Tencel.
Image shows Marina Crnoja-Cosic showing an example of the work Lenzing has done to incorporate its Tencel fabric into footwear.
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