ILYSM is committed to ethical low impact production and high impact initiatives, balancing quality and longevity of product with responsibly sourcing materials.
Our engineered knit uppers are produced on Shima Seiki knitting machines, saving 30% of waste material over traditional sneaker upper construction.
We use recycled, low impact, and naturally derived materials whenever possible, weighing the sustainability/impact of the material with the durability and aesthetic function of the design as a whole.
To produce the ILYSM Tabi Sneaker, we partnered with an innovative footwear studio in Guangzhou, China, that pays its workers a competitive salary and provides housing and meals for employees and their families. The average wage at our factory is 3.44x the minimum wage in Guangzhou, China.
While our upper knitting process is automated and high tech (with technician oversight), the rest of the process is touched by human hands every step of the way.
It’s easy to picture a factory full of machines and robots producing your sneakers, but the truth is that the process of assembling is incredibly labor intensive.
Although we eliminate steps in the manufacturing process by utilizing digital knitting and laser cutting in our upper construction process, your sneaker still passes through 31 stations; up to 135 workers touch each sneaker during the assembly process: knitting, stitching, cutting, lasting, gluing, refining, checking quality, and packaging, and many, many more have touched each raw component before it reaches you.
