Woven Shoe Upper

Abstract

The present invention concerns a shoe upper comprising a woven portion, wherein the woven portion comprises a plurality of warp yarns; a plurality of weft yarns; at least one stitching yarn, wherein the stitching yarn is integrally woven into the fabric during the weaving process by laterally displacing the stitching yarn substantially along the weft direction and moving the stitching yarn in and out of at least one open reed gap in a reed.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to a shoe upper comprising a woven portion with an integrally woven stitching yarn and methods for production thereof.PRIOR ART[0002]Knitting offers a great amount of flexibility for varying the stiffness and elasticity of a shoe upper by varying local yarn content and knit structure. Therefore, a knitted shoe upper allows for a good fit and conformation to a wearer's foot. However, for demanding applications, such as running, playing football, or a number of other sports activities, the knit requires extra reinforcement, for example from tape, a heel counter, or an external cage system, which adds to the complexity and cost of the production process. For this reason, woven materials are an alternative for such applications because they have a lighter weight and higher tensile strength than knits.[0003]Unfortunately, conventional weaving techniques do not offer the same flexibility for engineering a fabric as knitting. For a woven m...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0055]In conventional weaving techniques, incorporating a complex pattern would result in waste yarns at the back of the woven fabric and hence an increased average area weight of the fabric. The reason for this is that with conventional techniques, a localized pattern can only be created by moving a yarn to the top of the weave at those positions where it is supposed to show and hiding said yarn at the back of the weave over the whole length or width of the weave in those positions where it is not supposed to be visible. The present method prevents waste yarns at the back of the fabric as the stitching yarn allows localized patterns to be incorporated into a textile without the need to hide the yarn at the back of the textile in portions of the fabric where it is not supposed to be visible. As a consequence, the average area weight of the woven fabric may be reduced, thereby improving the performance of the shoe upper. Note that with the present method, the area weight of the fabric may also be engineered to vary locally (the area weight in regions comprising the stitching yarn may be higher than in regions without the stitching yarn) more specifically than with conventional methods, thus allowing, for example, reinforcement regions to be engineered into some portions of the fabric while keeping other portions more lightweight.

[0056]An additional benefit of the present method is that the stitching yarn can be used to crimp the edge of the woven sheet to prevent fraying. Part of the woven sheet is cut after weaving to form the woven portion, either manually or automatically via conventional cutting or laser cutting. The shoe is then formed via a lasting and finishing process. One of the major hurdles in using woven materials, for example Leno-type woven fabric, for producing shoe uppers is the unravelling of material during handling. This method allows for open woven structures without the need for glues or adhesives, such as melt yarns, to prevent unravelling during handling.

Problems solved by technology

However, for demanding applications, such as running, playing football, or a number of other sports activities, the knit requires extra reinforcement, for example from tape, a heel counter, or an external cage system, which adds to the complexity and cost of the production process.

Unfortunately, conventional weaving techniques do not offer the same flexibility for engineering a fabric as knitting.

The technical limitations resulting from compatibility issues of different materials on a warp beam are more severe than for knitting.

A further important limitation is that any engineering based on introducing different warp or weft yarns is done in a strictly linear fashion.

Therefore, reinforcement, for example by using stronger yarns, can only be achieved along the warp (0°) or weft (90°) direction and therefore woven materials are often unstable along a “bias direction” substantially along + / −45° to the warp direction.

This relationship limits the stability of certain open structures as well as the range of achievable differences between traditionally engineered zones since typically most zones on a single textile will have similar densities and common warp yarns.

However, this method requires additional handling and is therefore time-consuming.

Furthermore, the accuracy and reproducibility in adding the additional yarn is naturally limited in this method.

However, these techniques are technically complex, produce waste yarns at the back of the fabric, and increase the area weight of the fabric significantly.

Images