Industrial Devolution: Workshop

A project in two parts, ‘Industrial Devolution’ is half shoe-making methodology, half experimental footwear product. Frustrated by our disconnect with making and curious about the growing distance between consumers and manufacturing, Ruben Warnshuis set about decentralising production by creating a workshop where anyone can weave their own shoes from rope using looms and moulds. Four wooden work stations invite us to create footwear in four steps: weaving soles on a loom, threading upper yarns through soles, weaving the upper, and finishing. By removing complexity and devolving production into a low-tech process, ‘Industrial Devolution’ helps us to learn self-sufficiency, expand our skills and material knowledge, and nurture our relationships with the objects we own.