
The battle against sweaty feet continues. We got a scoop this week while in Germany, where W. L. Gore & Associates, the makers of GORE–TEX, unveiled a new footwear technology.
The company touts that its to-be-released tech, called GORE–TEX Surround, can move moisture away from the feet unlike anything on the market.
GORE–TEX has long been applied to shoes and boots to make them waterproof. Breathability could be better, however, with many of the available models.

Surround offers a new kind of waterproof shoe with an “all-around breathable sole.” The company developed something it calls a Surround Spacer, which is a woven polyester or polyamide mesh insole. It is a spacer of sorts and allows air to pass beneath the GORE–TEX bootie insert.
Typically, a membrane bootie is fused to a shoe’s sole and offers no breathability. “The entire surface below the foot has never been targeted for breathability,” said Achim Loffler of Gore.

