When four-time world champion marathon runner Helen Obiri crossed the finish line at the Paris Olympic Games, a wave of relief washed over her. Months of training, consisting of early starts and long hours, had finally served its purpose: she had placed third, and was taking home the bronze medal. But as she celebrated, she noticed something strange.
Everyone was staring at her feet.
If you’ve ever paid attention to athletes, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen a lot of Nike, Puma, and adidas plastered on their feet over the years, with some challenger brands brought in for good measure. But, if you looked carefully during this past Olympics, you would have seen a new name.
Swiss brand On Running graced the feet of 66 athletes across the games, ranging from Obiri and current world no. 1 tennis player Iga Świątek, to Australian runners Claudia Hollingsworth, Peyton Craig, Ben Buckingham, and Morgan McDonald.
And if you looked very carefully, you probably would have noticed that some of the shoes being worn look completely different from the competition. They don’t have any laces, and are largely made of one single piece of unbroken material. The resulting shoe is lighter, more sustainable, and recyclable. If that sounds impossible, it’s already a reality, and On is only getting started.
The Birth of LightSpray
The shoe in question is called the Cloudboom LS, with LS standing for ‘LightSpray’, which is On’s secret sauce. It’s what the brand is calling a new manufacturing process, using robotics to spin a semi-translucent monofilament into a custom-built shoe made to fit a particular person’s foot. The resulting shoe has no laces, weighs only 170 grams, and has a carbon footprint 75 per cent less than On’s more traditionally made shoes.
Compared to other sportswear companies, which set athletes up with a number of generic shoes, allowing them to run them into the ground and replace as necessary, On has reworked the entire value chain of footwear in an effort to create something more sustainable that results in a lighter shoe that can be personalised to each individual wearer.
“The ultra-thin, completely seamless uppers are sprayed for a precision fit which provides support and comfort for all,” Nils Ame Altrogge, director of technology innovation and research at On Running told me.
“To ensure durability, LightSpray shoes have been tried and tested in some of the most demanding race environments by elite athletes – they are as durable as standard footwear uppers.”
On isn’t kidding. Kenya’s Obriri wore the Cloudboom LS to victory in the Boston Marathon earlier this year, and, according to the New York Times, refused to give the shoes back.
“With LightSpray, we not only revolutionised how a product looks, feels, and functions, but also its engineering, design, and development process. We’ve replaced the traditional pattern making process with computational design and robot programming,” Altrogge said.
“This allows every part of the LightSpray structure to be engineered according to its needs, and facilitates rapid prototyping, transforming ideas into products within hours.”
If that wasn’t impressive enough, once the design is finalised a new shoe can be made every three minutes, and since the robotic arm only uses what it needs, there is significantly less waste at the end of the day. Plus, the material used can be unbound from the heel and repurposed into another shoe, making it incredibly versatile. I like to think of it as if a robot spider was using its web to make a shoe for you, and, honestly, that’s not far off from the truth.
The whole idea behind what would become LightSpray started when material designer Johannes Voelchert stumbled upon a YouTube video showing someone using a hot glue gun to create filament-like ‘spider webs’. This served as the launching point to the question, ‘what else could you do with such a filament?’.
Voelchert played with the idea, came up with a basic shoe design, and presented the idea at the Milan Design Fair in 2019. While exploring the expo, On’s lead concept designer Martin Reugg saw the potential of the idea and recruited Voelchert. The rest, as they say, is history.
For now, the LightSpray shoes are being made at the On Labs in Zurich, since that’s where the robotics needed to properly create the material exist. Moving forward, however, On is confident that such facilities can be used to quickly and sustainably make shoes on a local level. However, since the Cloudboom LS still isn’t quite ready for the mass market, the shoes have only been available in specialty drops, but should be available from the brand’s website sometime this year.
No More Games
If you’re not sure about the idea of wearing shoes made out of gluey spider web, I can’t blame you. But the results do speak for themselves, and On isn’t putting all its eggs in one basket. The business already has a booming sportswear brand including a range of non-LightSpray shoes, as well as a number of accessories such as bags and socks, and is seeing surprisingly fast results internationally.
According to On, international growth will play a key role in the future of the business. During a 2023 investor day, On expressed its ambition to become the “most premium global sportswear brand”, and said it expects to double its sales figures in the next three years.
If that sounds unlikely, the business’ performance in the APAC region grew by over 70 per cent during the second quarter, which is already faster than On was expecting.
Beyond the Olympics, the Cloudboom LS continues to deliver. Norwegian triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt dominated the recent Ironman triathlon in Frankfurt, setting a new record for the course and securing the title of European Ironman Champion. He did it in the Cloudboom LS.
Likewise, Czech triathlete Petra Kuříková channeled the home-field advantage to take home the win at the first-ever Ironman race in the Czech Republic, finishing four minutes ahead of second place. She didn’t do it in the Cloudboom LS, but the Cloudboom Strike – a non-LightSpray variant that is already available for purchase.
As Obriri noted after her Boston Marathon win, On’s shoes are making a difference to the runners wearing them, and Altrogge seems to agree.
“For On, we see this as just the beginning of where we can take Lightspray.”
