How to Pick The Right Sneaker Materials?

With Nike, Puma, Adidas, and several other sneaker and athletic shoe companies leading the footwear industry, sneakers turn out to be an all-time need of every single individual around the globe.

Surprisingly, USA and China always have a competitive edge in the footwear industry due to high-quality material supply from within the country.

Where China has an upper-hand in leather shoe industry as there are several leather processing companies that provide high-quality leather shoes. Rather, in 2018, China Shoe Export Company had handled export of 679.2 million pairs of leather shoes around the globe.

And, adding to the surprise, Asia turns out to be the major consumer of footwear, that is, about 54%, followed by North America (15%) and Europe (15%).

Therefore, Asia is the leading manufacturer and exporter of footwear, especially sneakers and men’s exotic skin dress shoes.

Choosing the Right Material for Your Sneaker Company:

If you wish to know how to make sneakers from scratch or how to start a sneaker store business, what’s crucial is to know how sneakers are made, how to perform a quality check on the material used and manufacturing process of the sneakers.

Choosing the right footwear material is critical to make your game come to life! Although sneaker design and branded logo does give a hype to a sneaker, but it’s not the most important feature in a sneaker.

When it comes to choosing sneaker materials, there are several material choices to choose from: leather, silk mesh, high-tech synthetics, closed-cell or open-cell foam, etc.

It’s the sneaker designers that carefully pick the right materials to stand to the demands of the customers. A material that fades or rips overtime is strictly avoided for first-hand sneaker branded shoes.

Different Materials for Manufacturing Sneaker Shoes:

If you are preparing to manufacture custom sneakers, here are several materials to choose from and the factors you should consider while choosing them:

1. Leather Material:

Commonly, cow hide leather is used for manufacturing sneakers. This specific leather is highly durable, stretchable, comfortable, and flexible to optimize the comfort of the wearer. Moreover, it comes in multiple shades, styles, and price variations. Most of the high-end branded sneakers are made from this functional cow hide leather material. Leather is deemed the most comfortable sneaker material that is breathable and conforms to the shape of wearer’s foot.

On the flip side, leather is expensive, heavy, and prone to damage. Leather can possibly absorb water and is comparatively hot for summers. To make it water-resistant, there are several additional costs you’d need to bear. Moreover, leather is a high-maintenance material compared to other fabrics and shoe materials that needs extra care while manufacturing leather sneakers.

Moreover, leather hides come from several animals with different patterns, imperfections, scars, etc. A lot of those scars need to be avoided when cutting leather for shoes. This leads to tons of ‘cutting loss’ that refers to the unusable material.

In case you are wondering about white leather shoes, those are actually made of suede material coated with a thin layer of PU plastic material. The suede leather is comparatively inexpensive, easy to maintain and clean, and highly durable. Rather, this suede leather is no different from the original full-grain leather material in appearance.

We at Chinashoemanufacturer are custom sneaker shoes and luxury shoes manufacturers. If you are setting up your men’s footwear business, contact us to get minimum MOQ that’s completely affordable for any startup.

2. Textile Material:

Textiles for sneakers are popular summer athletic shoe material available in different weaves, fibers, knits, colors, and deniers (fabric weight). Footwear fabrics include nylon, cotton, wool, polyester, lycra, polypropylene, rayon, and several other fabrics. Each having a unique texture and properties is chosen by shoe designers as per needs.

Textiles offer a huge variety of colors, textures, patterns, and other unique features to the sneaker shoes. Sneakers made of textile are lined with fabrics from inside, outside, and sometimes on the bottom as well.

Going to set up a highly profitable sneaker business? Learn more on how to start a sneaker company from scratch here.

3. Synthetic Materials:

PU, synthetics, PU leather and synthetic leather are all the same materials for manufacturing modern athletic shoes. PU leather was initially rejected by the footwear industry. But, now layered with woven or non-woven polyester fibers joined via ‘dry’ lamination method or ‘wet’ liquid method. Suck layering makes them highly functional for usage in inexpensive shoes.

On the downside, these synthetic materials crease or wrinkle with several uses compared to genuine leather or textile material.

There are several China shoe manufacturing companies that greatly utilize synthetic materials for crafting PU, PVC, TPR sandals. These are cheaper to manufacture and are quite popular in local market around the world. Check out the sandal manufacturers from China here.

4. Foam Material:

Foam is usually used in the uppers of sneakers. There is an ‘open-cell’ foam and ‘closed-cell’ foam.

Open cell foam is made of polyurethane (PU) plastic that opens up the cells of foam. It comes in multiple thickness and color variations. PU open cell foam is used in shoe uppers as it allows easy stitching and prevents wrinkling or creasing of shoe. Thus, it is a breathable material. But, on the downside, the foam is not water-resistant.

Closed cell foam, as the name suggests, is made of sealed or tightly packed cells allowing no air or water to pass through. It is comparatively dense and is used for midsoles. There are several types of closed-cell foams such as PE, EVA, SBR, PU, neoprene, and latex. EVA is waterproof to back up mesh fabrics, SBR is stretchable for shoe supper material, and PE is lightweight.

Foam material for sneakers revolves around choosing the right foam as per its properties for shoe insole, outsole, upper material, etc.

Which is the Best Material for Sneakers?

Sneakers comes in all shapes, sizes and MATERIALS. Each material has its own properties and oftentimes there’s a mix of fabrics used to manufacture sneakers. Several factors are vital when picking the right material for your company’s sneakers shoes such as durability, comfort, design, performance, price, etc.

In terms of popularity, leather and fabrics are the top priorities in the sneaker industry. Although there are several downsides to leather sneakers, it can be made high-end by water-resistant treatments. When backed by microfiber PU material, it has a smoother surface and can be dyed to your liking.

Be it PU leather or genuine high-quality leather, shoe manufacturers in China have the expertise to manufacture sneaker shoes of your choice. Need help with sneaker manufacturing or designing? Check out what we have to offer to you:

What We Have to Offer?

Chinashoemanufacturers specializes in manufacturing men’s exotic skin dress shoes and sneaker shoes made of high-end materials as per your budget and demands. Offering lowest MOQs, high-quality sneaker materials, and exceptional services, we are the leading shoe manufacturing companies in China for start-ups and medium-scale businesses.

Unlike other wholesale shoe suppliers in China, we offer as low as 20 pairs of MOQ order for a start. Place an order for several designs such as dress shoes, casual shoes, goodyear shoes, crocodile shoes, alligator shoes, lizard shoes, ostrich shoes and even exotic skin sneakers.

We also offer OEM and ODM services that allow you to either design your own shoes or get our designer shoes labeled with your company.

Unlike other manufacturers and suppliers on global platforms such as Aliexpress, etc, we are proud to share the fact that we manufacture each pair of shoe under our own supervision and do not just work as shoe suppliers. Keeping a check on material supplied for manufacturing shoes to the last detailing of each shoe pair, our experts endeavor to bring the best material and quality to you.

We are more than what is on the display with thousands of shoe material choices and designs for you. Contact us to share your designs, requirements about shoe material, and quality checks you wish to perform.