I Live Barefoot

Typically I would not write about shoes. It’s just not my style. That makes today an exceptional day.

A few weeks ago I read this post by Dylan Tweney on Wired – Are your shoes killing your feet. The take away was basically that shoes are “messing up the perfectly-balanced, coordinated bipedal gait that our species evolved over millions of years.” No good. So a company called Tierra Plana is selling shoes by the brand of Vivo Barefoot that are essentially the closest thing to being barefoot. A piece came out as well on the New York Magazine.

So I decided to go check out these mystery shoes. Tierra Plana currently only has stores in two locations worldwide. So I guess it’s lucky that New York is one of them. The first time I dropped by their locale in Elizabeth street I was frustrated to find that they had sold out of their entire season stock a mere three days after the New York Magazine coverage came out. A second (larger) season stock was ordered. I went back yesterday to find that they were almost sold out again. I think I might have gotten the last green aqua model on size 12. This was lucky because they will not be receiving any more Vivo’s until next season in September. Production of the existing season cannot be renewed, or production of the upcoming season will be delayed.

The shoes are actually incredible. They are by far the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. They are super light, flexible and, of coarse, have no heel support to mess up that perfectly evolved gait.

Apparently the heel support on shoes forces a slight bending of the knees, hips and back to regain a vertical posture. Without the heel support a body is naturally straight. Needless to say, this is better on a number of levels. And after walking in them for five minutes you can notice the difference.

The lady at the Tierra Plana store, who I’m assuming is the manager, mentioned that the company had relatively recently been bought out by Galahad Clark – of Clark shoes. In my opinion this was probably a good investment, particularly given the fact that I may not ever purchase any other casual shoe. The Vivo’s were designed by a tennis player to avoid all forms of ankle injury. So you can actually do any type of sport activity in them. I may not even purchase sport shoes anymore.

If you can, I’d suggest checking these out – probably in September when the new season comes out.