As the footwear industry faces rising tariffs, environmental pressure, and growing demand for transparency, the need to bring manufacturing closer to home has never been more urgent.
Yet most footwear professionals lack the practical knowledge needed to design products that can be made outside of Asia, at scale, for a commercial price and margin, and without waste.
The new Footwearology Lab, opening in July in Alicante, will have the Mediterranean Sea in its front yard and a wide range of footwear factories and suppliers in its back yard.
This also allows the academy to provide more courses to learn hands-on by standing in the factory dust, listening to real production pain points, and developing actual solutions.
Footwearology has already launched the first course at its new location.
Factory Forward: Design for Manufacturing in the EU is an intensive, week-long deep dive into modern European footwear manufacturing. It focuses on real-world sustainability challenges and how to (re-)design shoes that can be produced in Europe at a commercial price while minimising waste.
Participants go beyond theory, connecting directly with local factories to co-create practical, future-facing solutions.
This is especially valuable for those seeking to restore or nearshore footwear production to Europe, whether because of tariffs and trade disruption, environmental and social sustainability, shorter lead times, or supply chain transparency.
Those interested don’t need in-depth technical manufacturing knowledge to participate, just a strong design or innovation background and a desire to understand how to make better shoes by designing for the factory floor. The types of factories that we visit will be based on the needs of the participants.
The course will be held from the 21st to the 25th of July, 2025.
