Millie’s Surfbirds
By Millie Richards
Model wearing Camel Suede Surfbirds with NFW bio-based sole prior to the supplier going into administration. Photograph courtesy of Bared Footwear.
What is the origin of your shoes?
China- I developed them
What have they done?
They’ve been used in photoshoots and model imagery to promote the shoe. They also represent a huge amount of work and logistics to remove petroleum-based materials from our footwear. For me, this has been a real career milestone: moving a significant part of our shoes into bio-based materials. Interestingly, around the same time, the company we partnered with on the development began filing for bankruptcy (for other reasons). This opened up into a larger conversation around the infrastructure for these materials.
What do they signify?
They symbolise the time, money and effort required to remove chemicals that harm people and the planet from our shoes. The truly innovative part is inside the construction, and I love how that story highlights the hidden side of manufacturing.
What did/do you love about them?
For me it’s the material more than anything. Knowing a significant part of the shoe has moved into bio-based content changes the way I look at it and the way it feels to wear, because it represents all the behind-the-scenes work to remove petroleum-based inputs. It also makes the “hidden” innovation tangible, even though most people would never notice it from the outside. They are also my favourite colour and are a bit funky with the hardware.
Is there anything you dislike about them?
What I dislike is what they represent about consumerism: how quickly “new” gets churned through, even when something has taken years of work to do properly and more responsibly. Seeing NFW collapse around the same time was a real reminder that better materials and cleaner manufacturing don’t exist in a stable, supportive system yet. The pressure to move fast and sell more can undercut the long, careful work it takes to shift an industry, and that part feels frustrating.
Why do you want to deconstruct and/or transform these shoes?
I want to deconstruct and transform them because, as they are, they’d likely end up sitting in our archive as a “moment” rather than being worn. And I don’t think their beauty or their message has much value tucked away on a shelf. By taking them apart and reworking them, I can make the story visible and active again, so the progress they represent lives in the world, not in storage.
