Technological Breakthrough - Assignment Example

Some maintain that sandals were the most common footwear in most early civilizations. Others say that the first shoes, called Pampooties, were made from a single piece of rawhide folded around the foot. It was kept in place by stitches of twine or leather strips. The pampooties were ingeniously cut to have the hair roots facing the toes to help grip the ground. They were worn by the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, the mountain people who lived on the border of modern-day Iran (c. 1600-1200 BC). Then came the sock.

The first real knit socks were discovered in the Egyptian tombs of the 3rd-6th centuries A.D. in Antinoe. In Europe, socks were strips of cloth or hide that was wrapped around the legs and feet. They were called "leggings." The main purpose of early socks was, of course, to protect the legs and warm the feet. The name is derived from the Latin term occurs, the Old English word soccer, and the Middle English word sock. Roman actors wore focus, which was loosely fitted for fast and easy removal.

Roman's sometimes wore succus with sandals and then removed their sandals indoors whilst the focus remained on their feet. Only from the fifteen hundreds onwards were socks used to enhance personal style. When William Lee invented the loom in England in 1589, the evolution of the sock accelerated substantially when socks could then be knitted six times faster and the first circular knitting frames allowed for mechanizing the process. Mass production and distribution of socks had arrived.Now with Shusocks dawns a new age in footwear.

A combination of the shoe and the sock in a way that takes functionality, health, comfort, and style to previously unchartered heights. Shocks are firstly designed to fit the foot and leg snugly, wrapping each toe in its own "glove" to give the feeling of more natural barefoot walking. For optimal stability, a thin, hard, yet optimally flexible sole has been added to protect foot injuries from unfriendly surfaces, heat, and cold. The top outer fibers of the weave are protected with a revolutionary substance imitating the scales of snakes or crocodiles.

This prevents any moisture from entering the sock from the outside, yet allows for optimum ventilation. Taking its wearer back to the fabric that has been tried and tested for centuries and still comes up tops due to the exceptional properties contained therein, Shusocks are made of pure merino wool. This age-old fabric generously supplied by nature has been hailed for its superior softness and comfort. It provides a natural and healthy alternative to synthetic fibers and is celebrated for its resilience and regulative efficiency.

When you combine the miracles of nature with modern-day technology, you get the Airloom yarn that was designed by Ashley Hanna and the family of New Zealand. Using a special weaving technique that produces an exceptional yarn with fibers that trap the air between them. The process has faithfully preserved the desirable parallel properties of naturally occurring wool, whilst at the same time ensuring strength by wrapping the fibers an almost invisible thread.