Fashion Designer Creates Flat-Printed 3D Footwear Using Flexible TPU

Ukrainian fashion designer Sofia Rousinovich has demonstrated an innovative approach to functional additive manufacturing by designing a wearable summer sandal printed flat as a single piece. Produced on a desktop printer using flexible thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), the supportless design transitions directly from the print bed to the user’s feet without requiring adhesives, fasteners, or post-assembly.

Engineering Wearable Footwear for Desktop Printing

Printing functional garments and footwear on desktop 3D printers often presents mechanical and geometric challenges, particularly when using flexible filaments. Traditional shoe prints frequently rely on heavy support structures that increase print duration and material waste. Rousinovich addressed these constraints by engineering a flat-bed layout that eliminates disposable support material entirely.

Key Design and Production Features

• Flexible Material Selection: The design utilises soft 75A Shore hardness TPU, offering maximum flexibility and comfort required for daily wear.
• Supportless Flat Geometry: By laying the entire upper and sole flat on the build plate, bed adhesion is optimised and bridging rules are maintained without generating support waste.
• Integrated Ventilation: Functional cutouts are engineered directly into the 3D model to promote airflow across the foot in warm weather.
• Zero Assembly Required: The completed print is removed from the build plate ready to wear, avoiding multi-part gluing or mechanical joining steps.

The project highlights how careful CAD modeling and an understanding of slicer parameters allow makers to overcome common limitations associated with soft elastomeric filaments on consumer hardware.

What This Means for South African Makers

For South African designers, small businesses, and desktop printing enthusiasts, this project illustrates the expanding practical capabilities of flexible materials on standard desktop hardware. Printing functional wearables in soft TPU grades demonstrates that additive manufacturing extends well beyond rigid PLA prototypes or static decorative prints.

Local makers looking to produce custom apparel, protective gear, or bespoke accessories can leverage flat-print geometry to drastically reduce print times and material costs. Eliminating support structures is particularly valuable when working with flexible filaments, which can be difficult to trim cleanly without damaging surface finishes. Furthermore, local small businesses can explore on-demand custom sizing without holding physical inventory or relying on international manufacturing pipelines.

DC3D’s Take

Printing with ultra-flexible filaments like 75A TPU is notoriously demanding on desktop hardware. Extremely soft TPU tends to buckle or wrap around drive gears in flexible filament paths, usually requiring well-constrained direct-drive extruders, slow feed rates, and precise retraction tuning. Achieving reliable bed adhesion while avoiding support material demands tight control over first-layer squish and cooling.

Designing the sandal flat is a clever engineering choice that plays directly to the strengths of FDM printing. By flattening the geometry against the print bed, layer orientation aligns favourably for flexural durability, and the reliance on bridging rather than support structures avoids messy cleanup on flexible parts. While soft TPU printing remains a technical challenge that requires careful calibration, projects like this show how thoughtful digital design can solve complex physical manufacturing problems on accessible desktop machines.