The aim of the thesis was to test novel wood-based materials in footwear. The thesis was conducted within the Design Driven Value Chains in the World of Cellulose (DWoC) project funded by Tekes. DWoC is a multidisciplinary research project that aims on finding innovations from wood with the help of design. The client of thesis is VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, where the author worked as research trainee during the project.

Cellulose has many good qualities, such as strength, abundancy, renewability and chemical tunability. Wood-based cellulose textiles have potential in replacing commonly used and often unecological textiles, such as cotton or oil-based textiles.

The main goal of thesis was to make a demo shoe, an all-cellulose shoe, from wood-based materials. The thesis was not aiming to develop a material that would be ready for commercial shoes, but to inspire companies and other stakeholders by the potential of cellulose in new applications. The research aimed to test and develop selected wood-based materials on footwear. Material development was design driven and done together with material researches. In order to compare the developed materials to commercial footwear materials, two standard tests for shoe uppers were carried out. The test results showed, that the materials were not ready to use in commercial footwear, mostly due to lack of strength.

The thesis resulted a pair of all-cellulose shoes. The materials lasted in shoe-making process, where the materials were doused in water, heated, glued, sewed and treated with heavy machines. Even though the materials are yet not strong enough to be used in commercial footwear, cellulosic materials turned out to be versatile and also proved to have potential in footwear.