Footwear designer to watch: Annie Purdy

British footwear design is undergoing a revival, and it is being led by a new crop of designers looking to place innovation, craftsmanship and sustainability at the core of their designs. Leading the resurgence is recent London College of Fashion (LCF) and Royal College of Art graduate Annie Purdy, who was awarded the Sustainable Development Prize at the 2023 Cordwainers Footwear Awards and won the prestigious Portuguese Footwear Graduate Award earlier this year.

For the Portuguese Footwear Association (APICCAPS) competition, LCF graduates were tasked with designing a five-piece capsule footwear collection that showed “originality of thought and pushed the limits of manufacturing capabilities in Portugal,” while addressing sustainable manufacturing techniques and exploring opportunities to incorporate recycled, biodegradable, or alternative materials.

With that in mind, Purdy, known for her sustainable creativity, such as upcycling materials like broken hot water bottles, discarded tents, and damaged kites into her designs, designed a collection for women who love the outdoors, utilising mainly dead stock materials found in Portuguese factories that were going to waste.

“My last collection was called ‘Hot Girls Hike’ and I work as a running pacer, it was like my two worlds colliding, and I like to use that within my footwear,” Purdy told FashionUnited at the launch of her capsule collection with APICCAPS during London Fashion Week. “For his capsule, it was a real celebration of women and the outdoors, and for people who also like luxury footwear.”

Purdy’s collection for APICCAPS explores footwear as both a functional object and a storytelling medium, drawing on the “themes of resilience, adaptability and contemporary culture”. The result is a six-piece capsule that challenges conventions, offering riding boots with sexy cut-out detailing, styles in a statement metallic green, square-toe flats and block heels, hiking boots utilising deadstock materials to create a unique patterned soles and platformed knee-high boots.

“Working with deadstock materials forced me to think about resilience and adaptability,” added Purdy. “Through my time at LCF and my RCA MA, I’ve learned that process is as important as outcome - embedding longevity, functionality, and responsibility into design from the very start. No single designer can solve these challenges alone. It requires shared expertise, cross-disciplinary approaches and an open dialogue throughout the supply chain.”

Commenting on Purdy’s winning collection, Paulo Gonçalves, director of communications for APICCAPS, stated: “Annie’s selection was part of a process that brought together representatives from APICCAPS, the school, and designer Bianca Saunders, who also sat on the jury. We reviewed proposals from several young designers and felt that Annie’s project stood out for its creativity and cosmopolitan business perspective.

“It seemed perfectly aligned with the Portuguese footwear industry’s vision, to promote the production of high-quality footwear while simultaneously fostering a circular economy through the use of deadstock materials.”

Annie Purdy – winner of the Portuguese Footwear Graduate Award 2025

FashionUnited chatted with Purdy about her creative process and the importance of upcycling in her designs, why she wanted to study fashion and footwear, as well as her advice for future footwear designers.

As a graduate of Central Saint Martins, London College of Fashion and Royal College of Art, what made you want to study fashion and why footwear?

Fashion has always been my way of communicating ideas and values, but footwear became my focus because it sits at the intersection of function, identity and movement. Shoes physically carry the marks of how we live. I’m interested in them as objects that are worn down, repaired, treasured or thrown away - and that makes them the perfect canvas for questioning consumption, value and material afterlife.

What did it mean to you to win the Portuguese Footwear Graduate Award?

It was incredibly meaningful - not just as recognition of my craft, but because it showed that there is space in the footwear industry for sustainable innovation and post-consumer materials. It gave me the confidence to keep challenging conventional production and material waste.

What inspired your footwear collection with APICCAPS?

I was inspired by Portuguese craft heritage and how materials can be reimagined rather than newly produced. I wanted to blend traditional shoemaking with components reclaimed from post-consumer waste - showing that discarded materials can still hold value and beauty when handled with care.

What did you learn working with the APICCAPS team? What was it like utilising leather in your designs?

Working with the APICCAPS team deepened my understanding of material traceability and responsible sourcing. When I used leather, I focused on surplus and deadstock hides to avoid new production where possible. It taught me how traditional materials can coexist with a circular mindset, especially when waste is minimised and every offcut is accounted for.

How do you place sustainability at the heart of your footwear design process?

Sustainability begins with materials that already exist. I prioritise post-consumer waste, industrial offcuts and components taken from discarded materials. From there, I design with repair, disassembly and longevity in mind. For me, sustainability is less about buying new eco-materials and more about extending the life of what is already in circulation.

In your graduate collection, you placed a spotlight on upcycled footwear – can we see more of that in the future?

Absolutely. Upcycled footwear remains at the core of my work - especially through the lens of the outdoors and hiking culture. I’m interested in deconstructing worn-in hiking shoes and boots, studying the traces of use, and rebuilding them into something new while preserving their history.

There’s something powerful in taking shoes that have already travelled miles, from charity shops, recycling centres or donated by hikers, and giving them a new life. For me, it’s about proving that performance and purpose can come from what already exists, and that ‘used’ doesn’t mean the journey is over.

You also constructed shoes from hot water bottles – how did that come about, and did it pose any challenges?

The idea came from thinking about comfort, care and the objects we abandon. Hot water bottles are often thrown away when punctured or unused, yet the rubber is durable and full of potential. Working with it was technically difficult - it moves, stretches and resists glue - but those challenges allowed me to rethink construction and embrace imperfection.

What materials would you like to work with in the future?

I’d like to explore recycled foams, repurposed technical textiles, post-consumer plastics, bio-based rubbers and agricultural waste fibres. I'm especially interested in hybrid materials - part waste, part innovation, that can be repaired or safely biodegrade at end of life.

What advice would you give to someone looking to get into footwear design?

Learn the foundations of shoemaking, but don’t be afraid to deconstruct them - literally. Take apart old shoes, study how they’re made, and ask why they have been thrown away.

Footwear design is not just about creating something new, but about rethinking what already exists. Stay curious, be resourceful, and treat waste as a material with value.