Sprout flowers when planted shoes

Shoes of oats

OAT shoes are completely biodegradable. When you're finished wearing them, plant them in the backyard and flowers will sprout.

By John Roach

The old sneakers can smell like something found only in the corners of nature, fetid, but chances are that there is much that is not natural to them. A pair of Dutch entrepreneurs wants to change that. They created a shoe that is completely biodegradable sprout flowers when planted at the end of their lives.

OAT shoes says their goal is to produce "sneakers that not only look good, but don't leave no mark on the environment, when you throw them."

The kicks are made with hemp, organic cotton, Cork, certificates of biodegradable plastics, chlorine bleach and other non-toxic materials. The first batch will come with seeds in their own languages, so that the flowers peep commemoration, kick users planted according to Gizmag expired.

The shoes are the fruit of entrepreneur Christiaan Maats and Dirk-Jan Oudshoorn, who believe the future of fashion is "reconciliation between nature and industry," they write on their website.

"We are nature, are born from it, we live in it and play around with it for awhile now, construction of roads and city and running around, not minding too much about how to keep the place clean. And now, up to our knees in the waste sector and with mother earth, losing his temper, it's time for some spring cleaning. And that begins with greener choices.

Greener choices, often they add, means a compromise on fashion. They hope that their sneakers cross the barrier. As a testament to the potential market shoes ', the company won the second prize this January in green fashion contest at the Amsterdam International Fashion Week.

Vasilios Christofilakos is Chairman of accessories design department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I said today that the shoes are innovative and represent the future of the footwear industry.

"What they are doing now is opening the doors for everyone."It is an opportunity, he said. "Some people say ' Oh so imaginative. ' Really? Why do we need to look beyond the gimmick? Let's look at what is happening. "

What is happening, he says, is a revolution in the fashion industry. Simple shoes, for example, strives for sustainability of 100 percent and incorporates everything from recycled inner tubes and plastic bottles of bamboo, hemp and organic cotton in their shoes and bags. Other companies such as Nike, make sustainability an important part of their business.

Significant change, said Christofilakos, will be the next generation of industry leaders — age students and recent graduates — that are bringing the industry a global awareness of the need for sustainable products and materials.

"We can still be watching them as items of news today. Not the staple. But I think these new elements will be the staple, "he said. "When in the future I don't know, but I think that's where we're going".

OAT shoes are expected to hit shelves this spring, though the company reported Thursday on their Facebook page that have hit some imperfections with production in Bulgaria.

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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the community Cosmic Log by pressing the button "as" Cosmic Log into Facebook page or following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@ b0yle).