Human + Machine = barefoot shoes
Entrance to the facility of Panther Schuh Manufaktur in Weißenfels. 8 workers produce our Senmotic barefoot shoes to order. All of them have been in shoe manufacturing for decades. Especially our seamstresses have unbelievable amounts of experience, which benefits our Senmotic barefoot shoes. We are the technology and market leader for hand-made barefoot shoes in Germany and have been in the business since 2010. By now, more and more “admirers” are copying us completely or in part. We feel honored, of course.
At first, our workshop produced only the Classic models. Later, we created the Premium series, with very elaborately crafted barefoot shoes. Now we also offer ballerinas as barefoot
shoes. And running shoes. And we have some more tricks up our sleeve. 
Making everything by hand is really expensive. A pair of hand-made shoes can easily cost you around EUR 1,000. To keep our prices reasonable, our workshop also has some machines. And we need
them; after all, we sell more than just one barefoot shoe per day. The
most common machine we use is probably the sewing machine. We use it to sew shafts; especially our complex premium barefoot shoes, like the Platinum and the Oxid models, can drive the seamstresses to despair.
Our shoes are very difficult to make. Therefore, the seamstresses have a datasheet for each of our barefoot shoe models. This ensures that we actually get the shaft for a Platinum F1 black/red when we order one. Sewing at the workshop is very complex and time-consuming. The more individual parts the shaft has, the more seams you see on a shoe, the better the shoe. Our barefoot shoes contain up to 120 individual parts which need to be sewn together. This is what makes Senmotic shoes rare and precious.
We need a special sewing machine just to sew the sole to the shoe. Once the shaft is finished, a thin sole is sewn to the bottom of the shoe (“overseaming”). When the shaft is closed, it can be glued to the outsole. We chose to use more complicated technology. At the workshop, the upper is pulled over the sole at the forefoot and only outsewn around the mid-foot and the heel. This ensures that our barefoot shoes are flexible and durable. The upper pulling process needs real machines. They look very complicated, are horribly expensive and still break down once in a while. So you should always have an expert for this machine nearby. In the image, you can see how the front section of an Oxid F1 Black/Black is pulled on. If you look closely, you can see the strobel sole under the last. The heel part is then sewn to the shaft using a special sewing machine.
As you see, your Senmotic barefoot shoes are created by a human-machine symbiosis at the workshop (maybe we’ll make a “Cyborg” model one day). On one hand, our barefoot shoes need a lot of time and work – more than 80% of the work is done
by hand. On the other, we do have a few, immensely important machines. They are used whenever people would not be able to do the job. Or are you able to press soles to a shaft with a pressure of
150 kg? If you think you can, we look forward to your application.
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