Summer 2025. Nike announces the Air Max 1000 in collaboration with Zellerfeld: the brand’s first fully 3D-printed trainer to hit the shelves, rather than a conceptual display case. In the same year, Adidas finalises plans for the mass production of fully additive footwear, whilst Zellerfeld concludes its beta phase and opens its platform to third-party designers.

It sounds like yet another announcement. It isn’t.

The global market for 3D-printed footwear is worth around $2.5 billion in 2025, with projections exceeding $5 billion by 2030 and an estimated CAGR of 18–19% (Expert Market Research, Technavio). These figures are changing the conversation: it is no longer a question of ‘if’ additive manufacturing will enter footwear production, but ‘how’ the supply chain is preparing.

And this is where things get interesting. The revolution isn’t confined to the sole — where a ‘bow tie’ lattice developed by Carbon in collaboration with Adidas converts vertical pressure into horizontal thrust — but extends to the upper, accessories and embellishments. For years, we’ve read about 3D printing in fashion, but it seemed more like trade fair rhetoric. Then came the industrial applications.

Stratasys, the PolyJet technology multinational, has developed the J85 TechStyle: a printer that deposits polymer via inkjet directly onto fabric. Denim, cotton, polyester, linen, leather. Print areas of up to two metres, over 600,000 colours, accessories — buttons, cufflinks, bag buckles — printable up to 50 mm in height. The software interfaces with factory MES systems. The Italian side has a name: Dyloan, with the Milan-based D-house, which also houses an academy for fashion designers.

Critical points: to democratise on-demand production — “zero stock” is Zellerfeld’s slogan — a technological and training infrastructure is required that is anything but lightweight. Customising millions of items costs more than mass-producing millions. At least for now.

Will the shoe of the next decade no longer be sewn, but instead made using knitting and 3D printing? Will it be built up layer by layer? We’ll have to wait and see, but it no longer seems so absurd to give it careful thought. Prototyping is certainly changing and will continue to do so.