New Balance and Unmade launch customisable knitted shoe

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Oct 29, 2019

New Balance and Unmade have combined their manufacturing heritage and digital capabilities to allow consumers to create their own knitted shoe.

New Balance said the partnership is helping it take its customisation offering “to the next level”.

The Unmade x New Balance 111 Knit silhouette has launched with a customisable knitted upper and a choice of graphics, colour and text. Six colourways and three patterns are available on the New Balance customisation platform, NB1, for users to manipulate.

Whilst this is not the first time the American sportswear brand has offered a customisation experience, the Unmade partnership makes the process more efficient and easy to use.

The collaboration illustrates the functionality of Unmade’s fashion technology platform, which provides photo-realistic renders of the customer’s unique design before it has ever been made.

Designs are then turned into production-ready data, and Unmade’s technology has been integrated to the New Balance supply chain to incorporate the manufacturing process.

“The data that Unmade's platform gives us has really pushed the limits of what is possible in our manufacturing and fulfilment processes and inspired innovation right across our domestic operations. Without Unmade’s technology it would have been technically impossible to launch,” said Katherine Petrecca, GM Footwear at New Balance.

Unmade said its technology empowers brands to reduce waste, get closer to their customers and develop agile supply chains.

Unmade CEO Hal Watts said: “At Unmade, developing partnerships with dynamic brands who have a genuine desire to be demand driven and customer centric to reimagine the fashion experience is absolutely fundamental to what we do.

“The fashion supply chain is broken, disconnected and needs to change - we know it and our global customers know it too. Connecting demand directly to supply and taking the guesswork out of fashion production is the only way to evolve, and we love working with brands who grasp the importance and urgency of these changes.”