Just 15 years ago On was a new entrant in a sports shoe market filled with several well-established competitors: Nike, Adidas, and Hoka. But the company’s novel shoes—identifiable with their base that looks like a layer of hollow pebbles—won hearts as more sports enthusiasts discovered them.
Today, the Swiss company reached a record high in sales, worth over $700 million, during its third quarter of 2024 and is continuing to rethink every aspect of how athletic shoes are made.
Traditionally, shoes are an elaborate stitchwork and several hours of human labor. But, earlier this year, On did something that could shake up age-old shoemaking trends. It debuted a shoe made in three minutes by spraying fabric material onto a foot mold with the help of a robotic arm. Oh, and it doesn’t have laces, either.
Take a moment to process that.
On’s cofounder, David Allemann, credits the Zurich-based company’s success and ability to draw people in a market filled with brand-loyal buyers to something relatively simple.
“On is really this innovation brand that is about radical innovation where you have to go for crazy,” he told Fortune in an interview held on the sidelines of the Business of Fashion’s VOICES conference last week.
The beginning set the tone: Olivier Bernhard, one of On’s co-founders, first pitched his friends on a shoe with hosepipe pieces at the sole for more cushioning, which inspired its CloudTec design.
About four years ago, On encountered Johannes Voelchert, a student presenting a Halloween-esque hot glue spray that made fake cobwebs to create new products at the Milan Design Week.
“We said, hey, sounds crazy. Let’s do it,” Allemann said. And so, On brought Voelchert on board and gave him the time and investment to develop his idea and test it at a larger scale.
The product got a vote of confidence when Hellen Obiri, a Kenyan athlete, won the Boston Marathon and Paris Olympics with On’s LightSpray shoe.
“We had a hunch [that] this is a very old industry in terms of how you manufacture footwear,” said Allemann, adding that shoes were ultimately meant to deliver performance. With a seamless exterior, On’s newest shoe is also much lighter.
“Everyone is also excited because it simplifies extremely all the manufacturing process, so you don’t have to ship parts around. You could eventually also do near-shoring. So, there is a lot of promise.”
The spray-on shoes are now available at some On stores, costing just over $300 a pop. But they’re only available in limited quantities, creating a new hurdle for On before it can truly declare the shoe a breakthrough.
Allemann said that On has “a lot of work to scale” its new spray technology, mainly because fewer robotic arms are available. How runners respond to and use the new shoe will inform On’s ability to build on its innovation.
Choosing On
According to Allemann, who worked at a furniture design brand and consulted before founding On, people gravitated to the Zurich-based brand organically—with little intervention. Although headquartered in Switzerland, the company has had a global mindset since day one, as it gets two-thirds of its business from the U.S.
When the company got tennis legend Roger Federer to back On in 2019, it was after they noticed him wearing On gear. The partnership flourished soon as Federer invested an undisclosed amount for a 3% stake in the company.
In the case of Obiri, who saw recent success with On’s latest innovation, the company gave her the shoes for training runs but then opted to run her races with it.
Signing On’s new brand ambassador, Zendaya, was also serendipitous. She first chanced upon its sneakers while filming for “Challengers” and was hooked on them afterward.
“We’ve been a discovering brand from the start. So we didn’t have a lot of marketing money,” said Allemann. “It’s been very much a word-of-mouth movement.”
That might seem old-school, but it’s worked. There’s also been no dearth of collaborations, including one that On launched with Loewe, an LVMH-owned high-fashion brand.