Footwear2026produced

NEVO CUSTOM ABCD

One pair, customised by hand · studs, beads, red thread

The customised black NEVO worn on the foot in hard sunlight with white trousers, the row of metal studs catching the light along the side

NEVO comes out of the printer finished. There is nothing to assemble, nothing to stitch, no seam to open. This pair was opened anyway. A black NEVO, hand-worked over one afternoon: metal studs pressed one at a time through the woven upper until they run in a curve from the toe back along the flank, and then lettered beads — O, V, B — threaded onto red cotton and sewn on through the same weave, with a thimble, a needle and a pair of small scissors on the table beside it. The point is the contradiction. A shoe made without a single stitch, given stitches. An object designed to arrive identical to every other copy, made into one of one by hand in the least technological way there is. Shot from above, the way you would work on it: the tools laid out, the tin of studs, the reel of red thread. Then worn, in the same hard sun as everything else that month.

Medium: Hand-customised 3D-printed footwear
Materials: 3D-printed TPU (NEVO, Zellerfeld), Metal studs, Lettered beads, Red cotton thread
Dimensions: One pair, unique
Role: Artist

Gallery

Four views of the tools: a reel of red thread, a handful of metal studs, a tin full of them, and the black shoe waiting on the white table — Everything it took: studs, thread, a needle, a tin.

Overhead view of the black shoe held in two hands on a white table, scissors and a ruler beside it, the first studs scattered across the surface — Before anything has gone in.

Close view of the first metal studs set into the woven upper near the toe of the black slide — The first ones go in at the toe.

Two hands pressing a metal stud through the printed weave of the upper — Pushed straight through the weave.

Overhead view of the shoe half studded, a line of metal running from the toe back along the flank, loose studs scattered around it — Half of it done, in a line.

Overhead view of both hands holding the studded shoe up off the white table to check the line — Lifted, to see whether the line is true.

The black shoe on the table with the completed curve of studs running the length of the upper — The curve, finished.

A hand drawing a length of red thread through a needle above the black shoe — Then the red thread comes out.

Fingers threading a small lettered bead onto the red cotton against the black upper — One bead at a time.

A hand wearing a thimble pushing the needle through the printed upper to fix a bead in place — A thimble, on a 3D-printed shoe.

The row of lettered beads part-sewn along the side of the shoe, red thread running between them — The row builds up along the side.

The completed line of beads and studs running the length of the upper, red thread visible between each one — Studs, then letters, then more studs.

Macro of three lettered beads spelling O, V, B sewn into the printed weave of the black upper — O, V, B — the whole point of it.

The lettered beads held between fingers with the red thread running away from them across the black surface — Held, with the thread still attached.

Overhead view of the finished shoe, the full run of studs and beads reading as a single line down the flank — From above, it reads as one line.

The finished shoe worn with dark denim, the studs picked out against the black printed upper — Worn, with denim.

The shoe worn in strong directional light, a hard shadow cutting across the foot and the studded flank — The same hard light as everything else that month.

Related work

Collaborations · 2024

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