Sustainable sneakers for a return to nature: from the underground, to the upperground, to the bio-based

Sneakers are framed historically, and within the current sustainable trend, echoing the growth of emerging brands, start-ups, and high- end fashion companies involved in the challenge of innovating bio- materials. The aim is to demonstrate how this fashion item, strongly bound to social phenomena such as cultural and gender issues, is ca- pable of reconfiguring the fashion industrial and commercial para- digm. This challenge is not free from contradictions, but it nurtures a fertile ground for experimentation, and a more solid sustainable culture in dialogue with nature. The research emerges from a fellow- ship carried out at Università Iuav di Venezia in 2020-2021.