It’s about 15% lighter than synthetics but 100% biodegradable. Built from the biologic Biosteel fiber, the adidas Futurecraft Biofabric prototype shoe represents the strongest fully natural material available, German sportswear company adidas said at the Biofabricate Conference in New York City. At the show, adidas announced a long-term partnership with German biotech company AmSilk, the developer of the biosteel production process.

“In a year of ground-breaking innovations from adidas, the announcement of our partnership with AmSilk – and the unveiling of the adidas Futurecraft Biofabric shoe – is another step in our commitment to redefining the sports industry,“ said James Carnes, VP Strategy Creation at adidas. AmSilk-CEO Jens Klein added: “The shoes are the first product worldwide with a high-performance material made of nature-identical silk biopolymers.”

Founded in 2008 as a spin-off from Technical University Munich, AmSilk in 2013 spun the world’s first yarn at lab-scale that copied the physical properties of spider silk. The silk protein itself had been produced recombinantly from fast-growing E. coli bacteria, freeze dried and solublised to spin an endless “multifilament”.