One step ahead

In Fiorima, imagination rules. It might seem strange, but an extra pocket always comes in handy. Even on socks. To store tobacco if you’re addicted to nicotine. To accommodate the shin guards, if you’re a football player. To deposit creams, if you suffer from any pathology.

The socks with pockets are one of Fiorima’s latest novelties, but not necessarily the most sophisticated, which is not surprising for a company to which NASA commissioned the design, development and production of their astronauts’ socks.

“We never started our own brand because we don’t want to compete with our customers,” explains Paulo Rodrigues, 54, Fiorima’s manager, who’s proud to have a factory completely in sync with the 4.0 fashion industry’s automation: “We have robots for 20 years now “(In the photo, the Star Wars’ robots).

The company is also proud of its certifications (“We have all the certifications – environment, safety, quality, efficiency, and energy,” says Paulo) and patents: the Intelligent Socks and the Gaiter Socks.

The Intelligent socks have integrated sensors that collect and communicate, in real-time, relevant information – such as body weight, body temperature, heart rate, geographical location, calories burned, average speed, distance traveled, among others – of whoever is using them.

The Gaiter Socks prevent mud, water, sand, leaves or other small objects to get into your sneakers.

One step ahead is Fiorima’s mantra, which focuses on innovation (“innovation only exists when you expand your knowledge frontier”, clarifies Paulo) to be always ahead of the competition. The company already makes 20% of its turnover with technical products and has a partnership with Smart Innovation in order to develop socks with medicinal characteristics.

“We are in the process of developing new health products, which can lead to new patents. Our socks with antifungal properties for the athlete’s foot, diabetic foot and chilblains result from our partnership with Smart Innovation”, concludes Paulo Rodrigues, a textile engineer who, after having completed a postgraduate degree in Health Management, graduated in Health Engineering and is now finishing Biomedical Sciences at the University of Minho.