This invention relates generally to footwear and, more particularly, to rollable, packable, post-activity, water resistant and/or waterproof footwear.
Activities such as skiing, hockey, ice skating, and other athletic events often involve specialized and/or uncomfortable footwear. For example, ice skating and hockey require users to wear skates that can include a structured boot on top of a blade and skiing requires a structured boot that connects to a ski. Such footwear can be cumbersome and uncomfortable to walk in. Other activities such as going to bars and/or clubs to dance or simply going on a night out will often result in women wearing high heels. After several hours in heels, their feet hurt, resulting in them either taking their heels off and walking around barefoot or bringing extra footwear such as tennis shoes to slip on.
In all of these instances, a user has three choices—continue to wear the uncomfortable footwear; take the uncomfortable footwear off and risk getting their feet wet, cold, and/or dirty; or carrying other footwear that is bulky and incapable of being carried on the user during the activities, thereby requiring the footwear to be stored, left in a vehicle, or placed somewhere out of the way.
For example, in the case of skiing, a majority of properties are not ski in or ski out and can often require walking stairs to get to the ski lift. Skiers are forced to walk sometimes a far distance in the uncomfortable structured ski boots. Mid-day lunch stops also require walking to the lodge in ski boots, and after a long day on the slopes, skiers have to walk home in those stiff, uncomfortable structured boots. For day skiers, they have to walk through an icy parking lot to get to their vehicle where other footwear is stored or to a locker where they have paid to store other footwear. This results in additional expense and possible injury due to slick conditions.
Accordingly, there is a need for footwear that allows a user to carry the footwear with them and provide a warm, comfortable, and slip-resistant alternative to current prior art footwear.
This problem is addressed by rollable, packable, post activity footwear that provides traction, comfort, and warmth as an on-hand alternative to specialized structured boots such as ski boots, athletic footwear, and high heels or other dress footwear.
According to one aspect of the invention, a footwear includes a shell; a sole positioned on a bottom of the shell; wherein the shell is reconfigurable between: a first configuration in which the shell has an L-shape adapted to enclose a human foot; and a second configuration in which the shell is rolled into a bundle.
According to another aspect of the invention, a footwear includes a shell, the shell having a lower shell portion and an upper shell portion; a sole positioned on a bottom of the lower shell portion; wherein the shell is reconfigurable between: a first configuration in which the shell has an L-shape adapted to enclose a human foot; and a second configuration in which the shell is rolled into a bundle.
The invention may be best understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing figures, in which:
Referring to the drawings wherein identical reference numerals denote the same elements throughout the various views,
A non-slip sole 20 is positioned on a bottom or footbed 22 of the lower shell portion 14 of the shell 12. The sole 20 may be permanently attached to the bottom 22 of the lower shell portion 14 or detachable. The sole 20 provides a thin protective, non-slip surface for the footwear 10 and may be made of any suitable material that allows the sole 20 to be rolled into a packable unit like shown in
The lower shell portion 14 provides a pocket or envelope for a user's foot to be positioned therein and includes a toe 23 and a heel 24. The upper shell portion 16 is connected to the lower shell portion 14 and wraps around a user's ankle and/or lower leg. For example, the upper shell portion 16 may be hinged to the lower shell portion 14 at the heel 24 of the footwear 10, see
As shown in
The upper shell portion 16 further includes a comfort band 44 along a top edge 46 of the upper shell portion 16 and a strap 47 positioned along the back portion 34. The comfort band 44 may be made of any suitable material, such as fleece, to provide comfort to a user around the user's leg. A first end 48 of the strap 47 is connected to the upper shell portion 16 at the comfort band 44 and extends down the back portion 34 towards the heel 24. A second end 50 of the strap 47 may be removably connected to the back portion 34 by hook and loop fasteners, a snap, a button, or any other suitable type of fastener 49 to move the strap 47 from a stowed position,
As illustrated in
Referring to
The shell 112 is a soft shell and may be made of any suitable water resistant and/or waterproof material, for example, a Gore-Tex material. The shell 112 may also be made of multiple thin layers to provide warmth, for example, a two-layer shell may include a waterproof outer layer 124 and an inner insulating comfort layer 126, see
The comfort sole 114 is designed to provide the user with a padded foot bed for comfort when walking. The sole 114 may be of any suitable material that provides cushioning, is flexible, and rollable to allow the footwear 100 to be rolled, as seen in
The non-slip sole 116 covers the comfort sole 114 and may be detachable,
Referring to
Referring to
The following discussion will be specific to skiing; however, it should be appreciated that this is just one example of an activity and is being limited to one example for clarity. In use, the footwear 100 is carried with the skier (for example, attached and/or clipped to a ski boot under ski pants or inside jacket or pocket) and is available for the skier to change into as soon as they hit the bottom of the slopes, thereby providing an immediate, slip-resistant, warm, and comfortable footwear for walking to/from ski lifts as opposed to walking between lifts, around the ski resort, or back to the ski house in uncomfortable boots.
In the case of other activities such as hockey and basketball, athletes can change into the footwear 100 after games to wear around the rink, arena, or court while preserving athletic shoes for game wear and not taking up space in sports bags. Women can carry the footwear in a purse or jacket pocket to wear home after a night of dancing in heels. Additionally, college students and others who wear fun shoes out to parties need a comfortable shoe to walk home in from the bar or party as an alternative to high heels or sandals and can be packed in a small purse or jacket pocket.
The footwear 100 is machine washable and may be available in multiple colors and designs to appeal to individual styles. In the case of the detachable sole 116, the sole 114 could be customized with a symbol or writing that would show through a semi-transparent or transparent sole 116. Further, raised symbols and/or writing may be molded into the sole 116 to allow a user to leave imprints in snow, dirt, mud, etc.
The foregoing has described footwear. All of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and/or all of the steps of any method or process so disclosed, may be combined in any combination, except combinations where at least some of such features and/or steps are mutually exclusive.
Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings) may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise. Thus, unless expressly stated otherwise, each feature disclosed is one example only of a generic series of equivalent or similar features.
The invention is not restricted to the details of the foregoing embodiment(s). The invention extends any novel one, or any novel combination, of the features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), or to any novel one, or any novel combination, of the steps of any method or process so disclosed.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63329951 | Apr 2022 | US |