The height of the heel can be changed with a click

Women don’t want to give up high heels, but then they bring spare shoes to be more comfortable during office hours. From now on, this situation could change: a height-adjustable heel means that you can wear the same shoe all day long. The iHeel start-up was born from this need, founded in 2020 by Veronica Crisafulli and Alessandro Filosa and hosted at Micam in the area called ‘Italian Start Up’, dedicated to new projects for footwear and created in collaboration with Startupbootcamp and with the support of ICE and MAECI.

So here is a technology thanks to which the heel lengthens and shortens, adjusting it to 3 heights with a click; the shape of the shoe adapts without losing comfort in the arch area, guaranteeing perfect ergonomics. “For the realisation of this technology,” – explains Veronica Crisafulli – “in particular for the arch of the foot during the movement of the heel, we were supported by technicians from Cercal di San Mauro Pascoli, one of the most important research centres and shoemaking schools in Italy. Furthermore, the heel certification was done by Analytical Group”. A project, thus, somewhere between design, innovation, and an engineering study of the product, which does not involve, as seen in other studies and examples of the past, the replacement of the heel of the same shoe, but the adaptability of a heel to two heights, for example passing from 5cm to 7cm and from 7cm to 9cm. For the moment, this technology has been designed for day-time heels (i.e., not thin heels), but in the future there will be an application to taller, thinner heels as well.