Mario Serrano Puche designs shoes and bags – with a twist. They’re all fully 3D-printed in rubber. I chatted with him about future medieval, making shoes for jesters, and what is next for him and his label, Body Amplification Devices, or B.A.D. for short.
In a warehouse in Hackney, a two-minute walk from London Fields, five 3D printers are going tirelessly. “I need to get more printers. I need to hire people for everything”, the designer behind Body Amplification Devices (BAD) tells me while giving me a tour of his workshop. It is a communal creative space, with many other creatives, mostly architects, working alongside him. For a few months now, the orders have been steadily piling up, with increasing demand for the odd rubber shoes and bags he produces.
Shoes hold a special significance for the 30-year-old from Colombia, whose parents ran a shoe factory for decades before recently selling it. “Even when I would travel with my parents, we would tour other factories. It was all about looking at shoes.” While he did leave his home country for London, he has not left the family craft behind, exploring new ways of shoe production. After studying architecture in the US, he came to the UK to do a master’s degree with a focus on digital fabrication and design at The Bartlett, UCL. Here, he developed a skillset around 3D printing, digital design, and algorithmic modeling. “It was a tool I had available at the time, so I just 3D-printed a shoe.” The first one did not turn out well, he admits, but when trying out new processes, it is all about trial and error, after all.
Mario loves a strong shape. His architecture background shapes his design philosophy and plays a big role in it.. Architects think about a space’s relationship with the body –
“Instead, I was looking at how something you wear affects the body. Shoes are a fashion object, but they’re also very functional.”
Shoes affect the way we walk, the way we carry ourselves, and the way we feel. Mario’s shoes transport wearers to a simultaneously futuristic and medieval universe, even if, admittedly, they are “not the most comfortable”. This is also what the name, Body Amplification Devices, stems from – and the fact that it makes the acronym “BAD”.
Although a printer handles much of the production, the process isn’t entirely hands-off. Mario usually starts by modelling his designs in a CAD program, to then have this converted into a printing path for the machine. This way of production gives him the option of having the shoe’s infill printed in an intricate pattern, which helps in terms of material and weight reduction, as well as making the shoe more orthopedic. The shoe then gets finished off by him dyeing and sanding it to make it look aged. Some of his products have lacing, which he sews in by hand. The analogue elements of production aren’t his favorite. “Every time I get an order for the bag, I hate it, because I know I'm going to have to sit down and work by hand, and that’s just really painful”, he jokes.
He has recently collaborated with LUEDER for their AW25 collection, creating a shoe that resembles those worn by jesters, which is now on sale. The silhouette is similar to those of the designs on his website – many of his clogs have an elevated tip. The reference is not coincidental.
“I get a lot of comments around the idea of futurism, but I actually really love when people say they look like ancient shoes.”
Future medieval is the theme of choice: while the shapes are stark and geometric, Mario does his best to make them look aged, playing with dye, lacing, and medieval references – like the jester shoe tip. But he also plays with hyper-futuristic cyborg-esque silhouettes, like in his collaboration with 900931.
Currently, he has a project with Coperni that is in the works, which he isn’t able to tell me much about yet. Up until now, he has been releasing designs as he goes; however, he is hinting at a more traditional collection concept being in the works. At some point, Mario wants to incorporate traditional techniques of shoemaking into his practice.
“I don't fetishize the tool.”
For the designer, it is about the universe he is creating around his items. He believes it’s not his 3D printers that are appealing to his audience, but rather the aesthetics and designs. “I have this idea of hyper-uniqueness”, he tells me, and then goes on to explain how, through algorithmic modeling and 3D-printing, it would be possible for literally every one of his products to be one-of-a-kind. This seems to be a far-off thing, though – for right now, he is focusing on fulfilling orders and getting a team together to dress more cyborgs and future medieval jesters.
