The Innovative Creation of On's Spray-On Sneakers

In today’s exploration of ground-breaking footwear design, we delve into On’s revolutionary concept: crafting shoes with a spray gun.

This avant-garde approach, known as LightSpray, has been pioneered by the Swiss sneaker company On. It transforms the traditional shoe-making process by enabling the automation of creating the shoe’s upper material.

Marc Maurer, previously co-CEO at On, highlighted the stark contrast between this method and conventional manufacturing, which typically involves numerous human interventions.

The method entails spraying a synthetic polymer onto a mold shaped like a foot, all executed by robot technology. Each shoe takes approximately three minutes to form, emerging seamlessly as a laceless design that envelops the foot akin to a sock.

Scaling Up Production

Maurer expressed the ambition to elevate production from merely thousands to potentially millions of pairs, thereby revolutionizing access and availability.

This exciting development coincides with the company's recent announcement of the inauguration of their first LightSpray manufacturing facility in Zurich, equipped with a team of four specialized robots.