METHOD FOR REALIZING SHOES AND A SHOE OBTAINED WITH SUCH A METHOD

The present invention refers to a shoe, in particular a shoe for women, in which the part of the sole comprised between the sole portion and the heel, which normally remains more or less raised from the ground according to the height of the heel and that is called with the technical term “shank”, is coated with the same material that constitutes or coats the upper or with a material adapted to match with the material of the upper.

In the prior art, shoes have been made in which the coating of the shank was obtained by cutting the upper so as to leave it with a portion projecting out from the side and wrapping such a portion, after the upper has been applied to the sole, around the shank.

This solution used in the prior art however has some drawbacks due to the need of appropriately shaping the upper so as to provide the projecting portion to be wrapped around the shank and due to the high amount of off-cuts which are produced in this step of the shoe manufacturing.

Moreover, the result in terms of aesthetical appearance and quality that is obtained is not always satisfactory, since it is difficult to obtain an appreciable visual contrast between the sole (in particular the shank region) and the upper.

The general purpose of the present invention is to avoid the aforementioned drawbacks by providing a method for realizing shoes with a shank that is coated with the same material as the upper or with a material adapted to match with the material of the upper, which makes it possible to obtain an optimal result in terms of appearance and that does not lead to a large waste of material.

The purpose of the present invention is also to provide a shoe with a shank that is coated with the same material as the upper or with a material adapted to match with the material of the upper, in which there is an appreciable visual contrast between the upper and the shank.

In view of such a purpose it has been thought to make, according to the invention, a method for realizing shoes, comprising the steps of:

• providing an upper, a heel and a sole element provided with at least one sole portion and one shank portion;
• removing part of the material of the sole from its lower face at the shank region;
• tightening the sole element along its side edge at the shank region;
• providing a coating element for the shank;
• gluing the coating element to the lower face of the sole at a seat defined by the removal of material from the shank region, wrapping the coating element to the sole with two laps brought onto the upper face of the sole destined to be covered by the upper;
• completing the assembly of the shoe by mounting the upper and the heel.

According to the invention a shoe has moreover been made comprising an upper, a heel and a sole provided with a sole portion and a coated shank portion, characterised in that the shank portion is coated by a coating element that is physically separated from the upper, the separation between the upper and the coating element defining a visual separating line along the lower edge of the upper at the shank.

With reference to the figures, FIGS. 1 and 2 show a shoe 10, comprising an upper 11, a sole 12 (in turn comprising one sole portion 13 and a shank portion 14) and a heel 15.

As indicated above, the shank 14 is defined as the recessed sole portion which is comprised between the sole 13 and the heel 15 and that normally remains raised from the ground.

According to the invention, the shoe is realized starting from a normal sole element 12, schematically shown in a side elevational view in FIG. 3.

Advantageously, the sole can be of the type known on the market as “bally”, which extends to the region destined to the application of the heel.

Such a sole is supplied suitably cut, thickened and milled according to methods that are well known in the shoemaking industry. For example, the thickness of the initial sole element can be of 3.4 mm.

The sole as initially provided is machined, according to the invention, by removing material from the lower face at the shank region 14. The removal of the material (advantageously equal to around 0.5 mm) is clearly visible in FIG. 4, in which the initial profile of the sole 12 in the shank region 14 is shown in a broken line and the profile with reduced thickness after this machining step, which is thus brought to about 2.9 mm, is shown by a continuous line.

In the lower plan view of FIG. 5 the sole can be seen after the aforementioned machining step, in which the front portion of sole 13 is substantially unvaried, whereas the thinned portion of shank 14 is joined to the sole 13 by means of a sort of “step” 16.

At this stage, the profile of the sole 12 is narrowed in width along its side edge. Preferably this removal of material involves a thickness of about 0.5 mm and it is advantageously made by means of laser equipment.

FIG. 5 shows, in a broken line, the initial profile of the sole 12 in the shank region 14 and, in a continuous line, the profile with smaller width after this working step.

FIGS. 4 and 5 show a removal of the material from the sole 12 (from the lower face and from the side edge) which extends to the end of the sole destined to the application of the heel (the end on the right in the figures). This is advantageous in terms of machining simplicity, however it is not essential and the removal of material could also involve only the shank region 14 leaving the sole at the heel unaltered.

The removal of leather from the lower face and from the side edge of the sole at the shank region 14 substantially defines a seat for housing the material for coating the shank.

The element for coating the shank is made up of a portion 17 of a generally rectangular shape, schematically represented in FIG. 6, and made from the same material as the upper, so as to provide uniformity, in terms of aesthetical appearance, to both parts of the shoe (shank and upper).

The subsequent working step consists in spreading glue on the lower face of the sole in the shank region 14 and on the face of the coating portion 17 destined to come into contact with the sole itself (indicated with reference numeral 18 in FIG. 6).

Once the solvent of the glue has evaporated, the coating element 17 is applied to the sole wrapping around it with the two laps 19, 20 which are brought to be at the upper face of the sole destined to be covered by the upper.

Subsequently, the assembly of the shoe is completed by applying the upper and the heel to the sole according to methods that are well known by a man skilled in the art of shoemaking.

The shoe made with the method according to the present invention has the upper 11 and the shank 14 both made of the same coating material. However, differently from shoes with a coated shank, but made according to the prior art, according to the present invention the upper and the coating of the shank are made up of two elements that are physically separated: thanks to this special feature, the upper and the shank are visually separated along the line indicated with reference numeral 21 in FIGS. 1 and 2, which substantially represents the borderline between the upper (along its lower edge) and the sole and heel assembly.

Of course, the description above of an embodiment applying the innovative principles of the present invention is given as an example of such innovative principles and must not therefore be intended to limit the scope of protection claimed here.

For example, in FIGS. 1 and 2 also the heel is represented coated by the same material as the upper and shank. This, in any case, is not essential for the purposes of the present invention. Whether the coating of the heel is present or not depends exclusively upon the overall visual effect which is desired to be obtained for the specific shoe model.

In the present description, for the sake of simplicity, we have used the expression “same material as the upper” to define the material which the coating 17 of the shank is made of. Of course, it is obvious for a man skilled in the art that this expression should be considered as the definition of a material which can be strictly the same as that of the upper or even simply adapted to match with the material of the upper. For example, for the need of resistance of the materials, a first material could be used for the upper and a second material could be used for the coating of the shank, wherein, in any case, the two materials are suitable for being combined with one another (for example according to the colour and/or overall visual appearance).