Footwear brand Vivobarefoot has launched a UK trial of its digital platform for the creation of personalised, locally assembled 3D-printed footwear.

As detailed by retailtechinnovationhub.com, the VivoBiome platform creates footwear with AI-assisted 3D foot scans.

Once users have used the platform, they can choose to further customise its design and colour before sending it to be 3D printed.

The new platform has been created in collaboration with 3D graphics engine Unreal Engine, with the footwear designed to “come to life” within the platform and give users an “immersive virtual try on” experience.

Vivobarefoot is seeking 200 customers in the UK to try its first generation of products, with the footwear set to launch in the UK for £250 a pair for VivoBiome members in early 2024 and with a global rollout to be confirmed at a later date.

Vivobarefoot said in an announcement that making normal shoes is analog, complex, slow and wasteful and that making shoes to order and 3D-printing them locally “removes the guesswork” and results in the lowest waste, energy and emissions footprints possible.

The company added that its aim is for full circularity, so when a user is done with their shoes, they’ll be turned into another pair.

Asher Clark, Vivobarefoot co-founder and CDO told website Retail Tech Innovation Hub that VivoBiome is a “radical vision for a circular system”.

“Indigenous footwear has been made for millennia person by person, foot by foot and out of local materials, a far cry from the mass marketed products that are destined for landfills, and we want to get back to this heart of community driven innovation and production,” he said.

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