Co-founded by Megan Key Campos and Nick Lucio, New York City-based sustainable footwear brand Oncept was recently launched.
The inaugural collection features five styles, and Oncept plans to continue releasing just five new styles each season as a way of showing their commitment to thoughtful, responsible production. Other production practices that help the brand reduce waste include minimal prototyping and limited sample lots.
Beyond the sustainable practices employed, Oncept also features shoes made of sustainable materials. Such materials include leftover rubber (which they’ve patented as “Re-Speckled”), an Ortholite Bio Base memory foam made from castor oil and recycled rubber, and GRS 4.0 certified recycled nylon sourced from post-consumer recycled polyester.
Taking things a step further, even the small details in the collection are eco-friendly. This includes the Tencel Lyocell linings for their shoes, organic cotton laces, recycled insole boards, and recycled fabric sport tags.
Further, while Oncept does use some leather for their shoes, it comes from tanneries that have been certified Gold or Silver by the Leather Working Group. This certification means that all leather used by Oncept was produced in accordance with the best environmental practices. And the brand has stated that they are working to expand their use of chrome-free leather in the future.
Oncept’s packaging also has the environment in mind. All online orders are shipped without the issue of tissue or plastic materials inside the box, and the box itself is made from recycled packaging. Plus, the shoes are placed in a reusable organic tote bag.
Oncept’s first collection consists of sandals and sneakers in a palette of floral and neutral-inspired hues like buttercream, sage, latte, citrus orange, terracotta, and vapor blue. The five styles in question are named after cities around the world and include the Athens Essential Sandal, Copenhagen Modern Mule, Nolita Forever Flat, Tokyo Travel Companion, and London Seasonless Sneaker.
Overall, Key Campos and Lucio wanted Oncept to be centred on longevity and material integrity, and that’s exactly what they’ve created.
All images in this article are courtesy of Oncept.
