Powerlace at Mount Orford

Oct 9, 2021

Powerlace at Mount Orford

The first question we get asked, almost every time, is this: "But will it actually hold up over time?"

It’s a fair question. A self-lacing shoe might seem fragile, like a gadget that impresses for two weeks and fails after six months.

We understand the skepticism. So, here are the concrete answers, not marketing fluff, but engineering choices.

Vectran: Our material of choice for the cabling

The cable that activates the mechanism every time you step in—the one that tightens the laces around your foot with precision, is made of Vectran.

Vectran is a high-performance liquid crystal fiber. It’s the same material found in parachute cords, spacecraft mooring lines, and NASA’s inflatable structures. It is chosen when exceptional tensile strength and resistance to mechanical fatigue are required—cycle after cycle, without stretching or weakening.

This is exactly what we needed for a cable that is tensioned and released thousands of times, winter and summer, for years.

We could have chosen a cheaper option. We chose a better one.

Made in our Saint-Hubert factory, with a custom-built machine

The Powerlace mechanism and laces aren't outsourced halfway across the world. They are manufactured right here in our warehouse-factory in Saint-Hubert, on Montreal’s South Shore, by our dedicated Canadian team.

When we looked for a machine capable of producing our mechanism, we couldn’t find one. So, we built one ourselves, specifically for this purpose. That’s the level of standards we set from the start: if it doesn't exist, we create it.

Manufacturing locally is also the only way to truly control what we put into our customers' hands. Every single part passes through our fingers before it leaves the shop.

A 100% mechanical, internationally patented mechanism

The Powerlace mechanism is entirely mechanical—no batteries, no springs, no electronics. It is activated solely by your body’s natural weight as your foot enters the shoe. Fewer complex components mean fewer points of failure.

This mechanism is protected by an international patent obtained in 2015. No one else does it this way. It is our own proprietary technology, designed and manufactured in Canada.

10,000 lab-tested cycles, zero failures

Words aren’t enough—so we put it to the test. The mechanism was subjected to 10,000 consecutive "step-ins" and "step-outs" by a robot in a laboratory, showing no signs of weakness.

To put that number into perspective: if you put on and take off your shoes four times a day, 10,000 cycles represent nearly 7 years of daily use.

This was the condition we set for ourselves before selling a single pair. The mechanism had to pass this test first.

1-year warranty: Because we know exactly what we’ve built

When you control your materials, your manufacturing, and your testing, you can guarantee what you sell without hesitation. The Powerlace mechanism comes with a one-year warranty.

If something goes wrong, we take care of it. This isn’t a fine-print clause—it’s the logical consequence of everything mentioned above.

What this means for you ?

You aren't buying a shoe that we hope will last. You are buying a patented mechanism, made in Canada by Canadian, with Vectran cabling, tested for 10,000 cycles, and guaranteed for a year. Durability wasn't an afterthought. It was the starting point of everything we built.