Is this the future of running shoes?

I HAVE JUST returned from Zurich, Switzerland, and am still in awe. Mystified, even. For, I have witnessed the miraculous. In a few short weeks, innovative Swiss sportswear brand On will launch the Cloudboom Strike LS, the first On shoe to feature their revolutionary new high-performance upper technology LightSpray™, and everything you know about high-performance footwear will change. You heard it here first. 

In development since 2020, On have produced a robotic arm capable of spraying an ultralight one-piece upper (that is, the entire part of the shoe that covers the foot), in a fast, automated, one-step manufacturing process straight out of The Jetsons that will completely disrupt and revolutionise the footwear industry. Let me say this again, because it bears repeating: I have seen, with my own eyes, in a top secret room, behind glass, at On’s state of the art lab, a robotic arm spray – yes, spray – an upper using 1.5 kilometres of spider-web-like continuous filament that instantly joins to their already iconic CloudTech® embedded midsoles, creating a high-performance running shoe in three minutes. Oh yeah, and they have ditched the laces.

‘Before the 60s, all shoes were made by hand. The last revolution was 10 or 15 years ago to make the shoes we know now. But this is an entirely new way of doing things,’ Johannes Voelchert, mastermind behind the revolutionary new technology, said, as I held all 170 grams of the running shoe his robot had just created in my hand. ‘We kept asking ourselves: what does the athlete want?’ What began as an initial prototype based on an industrial hot glue gun, through rigorous, instantaneous testing, where thousands of prototypes were given to On athletes for feedback, allowing them to collect real time data, has allowed On to create a high-performance shoe that provides exceptional fit and support, and reduces the conventional shoe parts from thirty-four to seven, cutting their carbon emissions by 75 percent.

Key to their disruptive manufacturing process, On employed people who had never worked with footwear in order to rethink what a high performance shoe could be. ‘LightSpray™ came about because we implemented computational design and searched for solutions that didn’t exist,’ Maia Zheliazkova, On LightSpray™ Senior Specialist and Computational Designer, said. ‘We did everything from scratch. Instead of manually drafting each part of the shoe, the upper, we designed algorithms that would design and optimise the shapes and outcomes.’

‘When you have thirty or forty different products making up a shoe, it is very difficult to change just one bit of foam or lining to see what difference that might make’, Dina Weisheit, Sports Scientist, said. ‘So we tested lots of options on different athletes in different environments: Tuscany, Italy; Boulder, Colorado. We take away all the distracting parts of the shoe, which means Lightspray is a seamless interaction between the foot, athlete and product.’

Of course, none of this would matter if the shoe could not perform. On athletes, including 4x World Champion runner, and winner of the marathons in Boston and New York City, Hellen Obiri, wore a development version of the Cloudboom Strike LS when she won the Boston Marathon for the second year in a row. Celebrated marathon runner Chris Thompson was the first professional athlete to run in the shoe.‘The shoes made him feel ten years younger, like he was floating,’ Nils Arne, Head of Innovation, said. ‘It’s pretty amazing because what began as a manufacturing prototype by Johannes, initially based on this hot glue gun design, has allowed us to work hand in hand with athletes to achieve their dreams.’

It was then that I asked, although a more accurate description might be: politely demanded, to try the shoes on myself. I was, I told them, somewhat of a marathon runner myself, or at the very least, a half-marathon runner training up to his first marathon, but a discerning half-marathon runner nonetheless. ‘Please,’ Maia said. ‘Be my guest.’ Immediately, and with surprising ease, my foot slipped into the shoe, and I felt a pleasant, reassuring purchase, something like a comforting constriction that encased my ankle. However it was when I took my first step, and then another, that a gleaming smile, momentarily, overcame my face. ‘It feels,’ I said, searching for words, like an overstimulated sommelier trying to describe a never-before-opened bottle, ‘like my foot is being hugged, while wearing nothing at all.’ ‘Exactly!’ Maia said. I then tried, unsuccessfully, to run out of the room, with the intention to keep running, perhaps, all the way home, but I was stopped at the door. 

Like the rest of the world, I must wait, patiently, for the Cloudboom Strike LS, the first On shoe featuring LightSpray™ technology, to be released. ‘But when?’ I asked. ‘Soon,’ I was assured. ‘Very soon.’

A version of this article originally appeared in Men’s Health.

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