SLIPPIE

Laser-Cut Merino Wool House ShoeSLIPPIE is the Modern House Shoe for the Modern Woman.
Laser-cut from 3 pieces of wool, SLIPPIE models after running sneakers, but creates a sense of comfort unique in house-shoes.

I came into this project very aware of the power a shoe holds. They’re called power pumps for a reason, right? Anywho, as an ex-insane-athlete (up at 4 am, practice before and after school, insane nutrition regiment, etc. etc.) I have grown up in sneakers. It doesn’t help that both of my parents are insanely cool people, designers themselves, and also value the quality of a great sneaker.

A very long story short, I knew it was going to be a sneaker I was designing. The constraint of itchy wool fibers didn’t deter me, neither did the contraint of laser-cutting-only techniques, neither did the “whole shoe must be one piece of fabric, cut and flat-laid, and then essentially wrapped eloquently around your foot.” -- I knew it was going to be a sneaker.

I knew that trying to make my own Nike Dunk Low (my favorite sneaker silhouette of all time) out of itchy felt wool, was not my path to success.

Initial Ideation

Concept Formation: Bringing together an element of every shoe I owned

Doodling in Class: A love letter to every shoe on the feet of the people sitting around me

Form Development

First Iteration of Slippie, using heart felt and heat melt

Third Iteration, dry lay of each piece layered together

Using monochrome wool to concept and figure out how to create viual hierarchy withouth color

Mood & Theme Exploration

Concept Theme I ended up going with. Hatch-mark design creating texture without extrusions seemed very interesting to me.

The second theme exploration had it's place in the world, but ended up creating too much visual chaos for me to justify basing my shoe off of.

Each shoe had the "under-slipper" which was then wrapped up by the outer and sole layer, creating some cushion and structure to the shoe.

Final Shoe