Coats Footwear, a UK-based yarn and structural component manufacturing company, announced its collaboration with Lenzing Group, an Austrian manufacturer of specialty cellulose-based fibers for the textile industry. By combining Coats Footwear’s ProWeave™ technology with Lenzing’s Tencel™ lyocell filament, the two companies have developed redesigned footwear uppers and fabrics that combine sustainability and performance features.
For the first time in the industry, the two companies have jointly woven Tencel Lyocell Filament with ProWeave, a patented jacquard weaving technology that can be used with a range of different fibers and yarns. The newly designed shoe uppers and fabrics will be used in Circle Sportswear’s prototype “SuperNatural Runner,” the first synthetic-free performance shoe – crafted entirely in Europe – to blend Tencel with wool using ProWeave and other bio-based materials.
“This is an incredibly exciting alliance for Coats Footwear, the Lenzing Group, and the wider industry,” said Paul Jackson, ProWeave Business Unit Leader at Coats Footwear. “Together, we’re revolutionizing the way uppers and materials can be made – giving footwear brands and manufacturers the chance to build high-level sustainable products in the most innovative way possible, with zero constraints on creativity.”
Lenzing is the first of many raw material suppliers to collaborate with Coats on ProWeave. Tencel Lyocell Filament, derived from the renewable resource wood from controlled and certified forests, is certified by the Vegan Society and is produced in resource-efficient production processes that recycle process water and reuse solvent with a recovery rate of more than 99 percent. ProWeave is a unique jacquard weaving technology that seamlessly integrates multifunctionality and design freedom into an exclusive outer material or fabric. ProWeave effortlessly combines different yarn counts, weights and fabric references to create complex fabrics with distinct gradients, ribs, waffles, colors, stretch, transparency and 3D effects.
As our sister publication The Outdoor Industry Compass reported earlier, the shoe was developed by Circle in collaboration with the Woolmark Company at Südwolle Group’s Südwebs Innovation Hub. Every component of the SuperNatural Runner – after three years of intensive research – was carefully selected to allow for an end-of-life phase that does not create post-consumer waste. These include the upper and tongue made from ProWeave-woven RWS-certified wool with Tencel; a midsole made partially from castor beans; an outsole made from natural vulcanized rubber; a 100-percent Merino wool lining and an eyestay made from Mirum, a plant-based and plastic-free material that has the appearance of leather.
