BUILT FROM EXPERIENCE. DESIGNED FOR HER.
THE FOUNDER'S JOURNEY
FROM THE FIELD
From school sport to international stages, Shae spent years experiencing the physical demands of competing across multiple football codes.
Alongside the excitement of playing came the less glamorous realities. Blisters, battered toenails, sore feet and boots that never quite felt right. Discomfort was often treated as part of the game, something to manage rather than question.
But these experiences weren't hers alone.
Years spent training, competing and sharing changing rooms with other female athletes brought familiar conversations. Teammates taping their feet before games, adjusting their boots during training and finding ways to manage discomfort rather than questioning why it was happening.
At the time, they were ordinary conversations between teammates. Frustrations shared in passing, often accepted as part of playing sport.
But as Shae's interest in designing her own football boot grew, those conversations began to take on a different meaning.
She started questioning why so much discomfort had become an accepted part of playing sport, and why athletes were expected to keep adapting themselves to their footwear.
If women were bringing everything they had to the field, shouldn't their footwear be giving something back?
Years of playing and listening had given her an understanding that couldn't be learned from a design textbook.
She didn't know it then, but those experiences would become part of the foundation of ZURO.
BEHIND THE DESIGN
AN IDEA SHE COULDN'T LEAVE ALONE.
The idea was one thing. Knowing how to turn it into a football boot was another.
Shae had spent years wearing boots, but she had never designed one.
With no formal background in footwear design and no clear roadmap to follow, she had to find her own way forward.
So she started learning.
What began with researching footwear and experimenting with soleplate designs gradually became sketches, countless conversations, prototypes and a newfound understanding and respect for just how much goes into a single football boot.
Every decision seemed to lead to another question. The shape of the upper. The height of the collar. The structure beneath the foot. How the boot should fit, move and feel.
The more she learned, the more she realised this wasn't going to be as simple as changing the appearance of something that already existed.
And by then, the idea had become something she wasn't prepared to walk away from.
REFINED THROUGH EXPERIENCE
TESTED. REFINED. IMPROVED.
The first prototype wasn't what she had imagined.
Neither were some of the ones that followed.
Early uppers needed reshaping. Collars sat too low, ankle areas needed reconsidering and soleplate designs didn't always translate from paper into a physical boot. Each prototype revealed something new about the fit, structure and feel of the design.
Some changes were obvious. Others came down to millimetres.
Each new version brought another opportunity to test, question and refine what had come before. But progress wasn't always straightforward. There were unexpected challenges, difficult decisions and moments when it felt like every step forward revealed something else that needed attention.
Still, those early designs weren't wasted. Each one taught her something that couldn't have been learned from a sketch alone.
Gradually, the pieces began coming together.
What had once existed only as an idea was becoming something she could hold in her hands. Something shaped by years of sporting experience, creative curiosity and a determination to see it through.
And for the first time, the boot she had imagined was beginning to feel real.
INTRODUCING EVOKE