using malai in footwear

We have been flirting with the idea of using Malai for making shoes for a while now.

Prototypes have been made of different types of shoes to demonstrate performance of this material in footwear application.

Properties wise – malai biocomposite does have lower tensile strength and lower abrasion resistance than animal leather materials which limits it use only for uppers material ( excluding insole & outsole ).

Stretching the material over a last is possible manually however due to a quite stiff character of the material not all shoe types are suitable.

In general we would encourage you to use Malai only for light types of footwear such as sandals, flip flops, slippers, moccasins or as part of the uppers in sneakers.

We are working on further improvement of material properties that will hopefully make this material more accessible for footwear industry.

Below are some examples of footwear made from Malai done by various brands & designers ( Eva Klabalova, Lucie Trejtnarova, CP! + Malai Studio )

If you have any questions related to using Malai for shoes please reach out to us : [email protected]