A young sustainable fashion footwear brand called Hilos wants to change how the footwear industry looks at production, and the waste it causes.
According to CEO and co-founder Elias Stahl, one out of every five pairs of shoes goes straight into landfills and 24 billion pairs of shoes are made each year using 48 trillion gallons of water.
The challenge in sustainable fashion, Stahl said, is making items without hiking prices. Hilos, he maintains, has solved that riddle by making every pair of shoes on demand.
The strategy allows the company to cut out middlemen, like inventory and fulfillment costs, that boost prices.
“If you only have $30 to make a shoe, where are you going to get the money to invest in better materials, or more ethical labor, or more transparency? But if you’re able to flip the entire model of the industry and cut out those middlemen and have more to spend on the product, you’ll actually get less returns and you’ll have more customers who will be loyal,” Stahl said.
The three styles Hilos carries start at $295.
The shoes consist of 80% recycled materials that are 100% recyclable, and designed in three separately printed parts that fit together and can also be taken apart and repurposed. Stahl said the three current styles, which all are heeled, can be worn all day with no pain or issue.
Developing this intentional new-wave design wasn't easy.
“We had to source new materials, printing solutions, develop new product constructions, everything from design to reuse at end of life has to be developed from scratch so it’s a lot of work and a process that is continuously improved and fine-tuned,” Stahl said.
Before founding Hilos, Stahl worked as the vice president of product for a Washington, D.C., company. He saw Fortune 50 brands wanting to use their influence for social change that couldn't surpass legacy supply chains.
In turn, changes at these companies remained surface level, Stahl said, and he became more aware of the need to change how brands approach production.
Last fall, Hilos collaborated with Helm, a Texas-based men’s boot brand, on a slip-up mule style shoe called Emmett.Stahl said Hilos is working with several other brands on launches that will come out sometime this year.
“Our mission is to change the way the world makes, not to make our own unique Hilos line of footwear. We want to help the entire industry adopt this technology,” Stahl said.
According to regulatory filings, Hilos raised $2 million in equity from about 21 investors, led by Better Ventures. The money helped the revenue-generating company move its headquarters to 431 N.W. Flanders St. in Old Town, where a production floor helps Hilos craft its lines.
Stahl said the company, which employs 12 full-time workers, plans to continue to use its investment money to collaborate with other brands to make zero-waste, on-demand shoes more accessible across Portland and the country.
