SCRY is a pioneering footwear laboratory, founded by innovation designers. Firstly named SCCCCCRY in 2020, SCRY lab takes footwear as the research object to explore the possibilities of future design and manufacturing. Working on the intersection of art, design, technology, culture, and environment, they bring cutting-edge innovation into real life. In a recent interview Zixiong speaks to us about the possibilities of fashion in digital space and the physical experience of rare designs and exquisite custom pieces.

I’m curious about the very first stageS of experimentations and explorations of this project. How was this idea firstly entertained and set to be practiced? Why the name SCRY?

SCRY was founded in 2020, but I have been doing research on the design and cutting-edge manufacturing of footwear for about 3-4 years. And the reason for the establishment of SCRY is more from my own vision of the future of footwear, I am keen on building up a new footwear ecology. Shoes have always been my passion, and that passion has always driven me to innovate in this field. In addition to my passion, I think footwear is a complex product between industrial products and clothing, and a typical high-threshold industry. Such a complex industry also brings me a strong desire to challenge. For the name "SCRY", at first, it was intended to be the abbreviation of SCCCCCRY which I call myself, but later it was found that SCRY means "looking into the future through a crystal ball" and I think this meaning made what we were doing very romantic.

Tell us about the different professionals you have in your lab, what kind of creatives do you work with, explaining the different rooms of design and production outcome?

I’m working with people from various fields of design, art, technology, material, business, and so on.

Your work revolves highly around cyberpunk and gothic sci-fi aesthetics… How are the concepts decided and worked on? Why is SCRY elaborating only on such concepts for the idea of futurism? How much of this is due to a growing taste for the avant-garde in fashion and reflections upon the artistic and technological evolution?

Most of the time, the concepts come from my most intuitive but abstract feelings. I like things remote and hard to touch, as I think they have a kind of neutral macro symbolism. In my designs, I emphasize the aesthetics of a new form, which may come from nature, macroscopic things, architecture, or even music. In many cases, I like the feeling of being one. And the future concept of the brand is largely due to the current human and social environment. More and more people begin to look forward to the future of human beings. I can almost see a revival of futurism and there will be more interesting and diverse radical brands in the near future.

The advancement in technology has made imaginations come to life, you have architectural structures as one of your main prominent styles, but I wish to know what is yet a setback when it comes to shoemaking. Is there anything left that one dreams of and cannot achieve in reality? Where do the limitations begin? (If any)

It's probably a pity that for very exaggerated and special designs, it's not possible to turn concept designs into reality perfectly now, even though using additive manufacturing. As we all know, when one difficulty is solved, the next one comes naturally.

I want to know a bit about the materials and the sustainable ways of designing. What are the innovative material tactics and methodologies used?

In my opinion, sustainability is a complex issue, because it involves not only brands and production factories but also consumer issues such as fashion culture. For example, fast iterative fashion makes consumers buy new shoes quickly and continuously. However, if we only talk about sustainability at the production level, then the waste of materials and energy, the sustainability of materials themselves, product surplus, and recycling difficulties should be the main issues that need to be concerned. While consumers only pay attention to the sustainability of the material itself but ignore the resources that go into producing, I'm more focused on streamlining the shoemaking process. The current shoe production process is lengthy. If only improve a few steps in the process, it will not improve the shoe industry at the source.

At this point, our advantage lies mainly in the use of integrated additive manufacturing technology. First of all, additive manufacturing technology is the best embodiment of on-demand manufacturing, with no overproduction, no product backlog. Secondly, if just changing the midsole, then the traditional shoemaking process has not really changed at all, that’s why I always emphasize integrated manufacturing. Using of integrated additive manufacturing technology aims to build a simplified production process that uses a single material to build the entire shoe, with different structures to meet the engineering and strength needs of different locations.

Coming to emerging subcultures and futurism as a concept, what are you looking forward to working on/with? Please tell us about your long-term idea for the growing buyers. What is it that they should be prepared for next?

We will build on our current strengths to bring true on-demand manufacturing and ordering model. Of course, there will be more interesting and diverse footwear designs and collaborations. There is a larger project on the way, and it’s related to the diversified footwear future that we envision.

Last but not least, what future do you imagine for digital fashion apart from metaverse or videogames and movies, where do you see digital fashion leading to?

I think the development of digital fashion is an inevitable general trend in the future. If you pay attention to cutting-edge designers in the world, you will find that almost all of them have started to use digital design methods such as VR modeling and generative design. Combined with the manufacturing field, it represents that there will be easier access to the design and manufacturing, and more and more people can participate in these matters. So the development of digital fashion must be extremely multivariate. I think digitization will empower designers, and I hope that in the future any good creative design will not just be sketched but can be brought to reality in an ecosystem of no mold opening and on-demand manufacturing.