Since 2006, our work has focused on understanding it, refining it and finding better ways to turn the movement of a freediver into efficient propulsion underwater.
But there was always one part of the fin we did not make ourselves.
The foot pocket.
We built our blades around foot pockets produced by other companies. For many years, that worked. We adapted our designs, experimented with different combinations and created some of the highest-performing carbon fins we knew how to make.
Eventually, however, we reached a point where adaptation was no longer enough.
We had a very clear idea of what we wanted the next generation of Alchemy fins to become, but we were trying to build that future around a component we did not design and could not fundamentally change.
The foot pocket had become the limitation.
So we made a decision.
If the foot pocket we needed did not exist, we would have to create it ourselves.
Starting From Zero
That sounds simple. It wasn't.
Carbon fibre had been our world, developing and manufacturing a foot pocket meant entering an entirely different field.
Different materials. Different manufacturing processes. Different machinery. Different tooling. Different engineering challenges. A totally new body of knowledge that had to become part of Alchemy.
We were not interested in creating an Alchemy version of an existing foot pocket.
If we were going to start from zero, there had to be a reason for doing it.
And there was.
We wanted to rethink what a freediving fin could be when the blade and the foot pocket were designed together from the very beginning.
Not two products connected to each other.
One system.
That decision eventually became ICON.
Why Should One Diver Need Three Pairs Of Fins?
There was another compromise we wanted to challenge.
Look at the equipment of an experienced freediver and you will often find different fins for different purposes.
There might be a very tight, highly responsive setup reserved for deep dives or competition. Another pair for everyday training. Something more comfortable for teaching, photography, travelling or simply spending a few hours exploring in shallow water.
We understood why. But we didn't accept that it had to remain that way.
We wanted to create one pair of fins capable of existing across all of those worlds.
A fin you could take to a competition and dive to 100 metres.
Then take the same fin the following day and spend hours training.
Teach in it.
Travel with it.
Explore a reef at 10 metres.
Fun dive with friends.
And never feel that you had brought the wrong equipment.
That meant ICON could not simply be optimized for one specific type of dive.
It needed the power, responsiveness and connection expected from competition equipment, while retaining the versatility required by the reality of how freedivers actually use their fins.
Because freedivers are rarely just one thing.
An athlete can also be an instructor.
An instructor can also be a photographer.
A deep diver can spend just as much time exploring at 10 metres as diving to 100.
Why should their equipment force them to choose
Performance Should Not Have To Hurt
Perhaps the biggest assumption we wanted to challenge concerned the foot pocket itself.
Over the years, an idea had become increasingly accepted within high-level freediving: if you wanted a competition-grade foot pocket, discomfort was simply part of the deal.
It had to be extremely tight.
It had to squeeze the foot.
And if, after a relatively short period, your feet hurt, cramped or became uncomfortable, that was almost interpreted as evidence that the foot pocket was doing its job.
We fundamentally disagreed.
A secure connection between foot and fin matters enormously. Unwanted movement can compromise control and energy transfer.
But secure does not have to mean painful.
Excessive compression can create pressure points and interfere with normal blood flow in the foot. Prolonged restriction can contribute to numbness, discomfort and cramping, exactly the things a freediver does not want during long training sessions or while preparing for a demanding dive.
Pain is not a performance feature.
And suffering should never be the metric by which we judge whether a piece of equipment is competition grade.
The challenge, then, was much more difficult than simply making a softer, more comfortable foot pocket.
We wanted both.
Competition-level lockdown when you need it. Comfort when you need it.
Without sacrificing the fundamental connection between the diver and the blade.
That requirement ultimately forced us to think differently about fit itself.
Instead of asking the freediver to accept one fixed behaviour from the equipment, we began exploring whether the equipment could change according to what the freediver was about to do.
That idea became one of the foundations of ICON.
The Equipment Should Adapt To You
Once we started questioning one compromise, others followed.
Why should competition and comfort be opposites?
Why should a fin designed for extreme depth be inappropriate for recreational diving?
Why should an athlete need several different setups to satisfy different parts of the same sport?
Why should the freediver constantly adapt to the limitations of the equipment?
Eventually, all of those questions led us to one larger idea:
What if the equipment adapted to the freediver instead?
That became the philosophy behind what we now call the Adaptive Performance System.
And it changed the direction of the entire project.
ICON was no longer about developing our next carbon fin.
It became an attempt to rethink the relationship between blade, foot pocket and freediver as one interconnected system.
It took four years.
There were prototypes, tests, failures, redesigns and ideas that looked promising until they entered the water. We had to learn technologies and manufacturing processes that had never previously been part of Alchemy.
But throughout those four years, the objective remained remarkably simple.
We wanted one pair of fins.
One pair that could be uncompromising when the dive demanded it and forgiving when it didn't.
One pair that could go deep on competition day and stay on your feet for hours the next.
One pair that could adapt to different dives instead of forcing the diver to adapt to it.
One pair that did not ask you to choose between performance and comfort.
Between competition and training.
Between 100 metres and 10.
You don't need to choose painful equipment to dive deep.
You don't need multiple pairs of fins because you do more than one kind of freediving.
And you don't need to settle for less in one area to gain something in another.
Why We Created ICON
Author: Nick Pelios
For almost two decades, Alchemy has been obsessed with carbon.
Since 2006, our work has focused on understanding it, refining it and finding better ways to turn the movement of a freediver into efficient propulsion underwater.
But there was always one part of the fin we did not make ourselves.
The foot pocket.
We built our blades around foot pockets produced by other companies. For many years, that worked. We adapted our designs, experimented with different combinations and created some of the highest-performing carbon fins we knew how to make.
Eventually, however, we reached a point where adaptation was no longer enough.
We had a very clear idea of what we wanted the next generation of Alchemy fins to become, but we were trying to build that future around a component we did not design and could not fundamentally change.
The foot pocket had become the limitation.
So we made a decision.
If the foot pocket we needed did not exist, we would have to create it ourselves.
Starting From Zero
That sounds simple. It wasn't.
Carbon fibre had been our world, developing and manufacturing a foot pocket meant entering an entirely different field.
Different materials. Different manufacturing processes. Different machinery. Different tooling. Different engineering challenges. A totally new body of knowledge that had to become part of Alchemy.
We were not interested in creating an Alchemy version of an existing foot pocket.
If we were going to start from zero, there had to be a reason for doing it.
And there was.
We wanted to rethink what a freediving fin could be when the blade and the foot pocket were designed together from the very beginning.
Not two products connected to each other.
One system.
That decision eventually became ICON.
Why Should One Diver Need Three Pairs Of Fins?
There was another compromise we wanted to challenge.
Look at the equipment of an experienced freediver and you will often find different fins for different purposes.
There might be a very tight, highly responsive setup reserved for deep dives or competition. Another pair for everyday training. Something more comfortable for teaching, photography, travelling or simply spending a few hours exploring in shallow water.
We understood why. But we didn't accept that it had to remain that way.
We wanted to create one pair of fins capable of existing across all of those worlds.
A fin you could take to a competition and dive to 100 metres.
Then take the same fin the following day and spend hours training.
Teach in it.
Travel with it.
Explore a reef at 10 metres.
Fun dive with friends.
And never feel that you had brought the wrong equipment.
That meant ICON could not simply be optimized for one specific type of dive.
It needed the power, responsiveness and connection expected from competition equipment, while retaining the versatility required by the reality of how freedivers actually use their fins.
Because freedivers are rarely just one thing.
An athlete can also be an instructor.
An instructor can also be a photographer.
A deep diver can spend just as much time exploring at 10 metres as diving to 100.
Why should their equipment force them to choose
Performance Should Not Have To Hurt
Perhaps the biggest assumption we wanted to challenge concerned the foot pocket itself.
Over the years, an idea had become increasingly accepted within high-level freediving: if you wanted a competition-grade foot pocket, discomfort was simply part of the deal.
It had to be extremely tight.
It had to squeeze the foot.
And if, after a relatively short period, your feet hurt, cramped or became uncomfortable, that was almost interpreted as evidence that the foot pocket was doing its job.
We fundamentally disagreed.
A secure connection between foot and fin matters enormously. Unwanted movement can compromise control and energy transfer.
But secure does not have to mean painful.
Excessive compression can create pressure points and interfere with normal blood flow in the foot. Prolonged restriction can contribute to numbness, discomfort and cramping, exactly the things a freediver does not want during long training sessions or while preparing for a demanding dive.
Pain is not a performance feature.
And suffering should never be the metric by which we judge whether a piece of equipment is competition grade.
The challenge, then, was much more difficult than simply making a softer, more comfortable foot pocket.
We wanted both.
Competition-level lockdown when you need it. Comfort when you need it.
Without sacrificing the fundamental connection between the diver and the blade.
That requirement ultimately forced us to think differently about fit itself.
Instead of asking the freediver to accept one fixed behaviour from the equipment, we began exploring whether the equipment could change according to what the freediver was about to do.
That idea became one of the foundations of ICON.
The Equipment Should Adapt To You
Once we started questioning one compromise, others followed.
Why should competition and comfort be opposites?
Why should a fin designed for extreme depth be inappropriate for recreational diving?
Why should an athlete need several different setups to satisfy different parts of the same sport?
Why should the freediver constantly adapt to the limitations of the equipment?
Eventually, all of those questions led us to one larger idea:
What if the equipment adapted to the freediver instead?
That became the philosophy behind what we now call the Adaptive Performance System.
And it changed the direction of the entire project.
ICON was no longer about developing our next carbon fin.
It became an attempt to rethink the relationship between blade, foot pocket and freediver as one interconnected system.
It took four years.
There were prototypes, tests, failures, redesigns and ideas that looked promising until they entered the water. We had to learn technologies and manufacturing processes that had never previously been part of Alchemy.
But throughout those four years, the objective remained remarkably simple.
We wanted one pair of fins.
One pair that could be uncompromising when the dive demanded it and forgiving when it didn't.
One pair that could go deep on competition day and stay on your feet for hours the next.
One pair that could adapt to different dives instead of forcing the diver to adapt to it.
One pair that did not ask you to choose between performance and comfort.
Between competition and training.
Between 100 metres and 10.
You don't need to choose painful equipment to dive deep.
You don't need multiple pairs of fins because you do more than one kind of freediving.
And you don't need to settle for less in one area to gain something in another.
That was the vision. ICON is the result.