Viva la Vivo! Barefoot form meets high style.

This is a story of a guy who loves shoes – the col­ors, smells (of fresh ones just out of the box, that is), and the many inter­est­ing and fash­ion­able designs. He loves how they add char­ac­ter to an out­fit and have the power to change a mood sim­ply by being worn. While women tend to be the ones who are into shoes more than men, a guy lik­ing shoes is still not much of a story. How­ever, this guy has writ­ten a num­ber of posts about the virtues of going bare­foot – how it strength­ens the feet, mak­ing you a bet­ter run­ner. So, how can he encour­age peo­ple to try going bare­foot yet wear styl­ish shoes him­self? Well, a solu­tion that mar­ries bare­foot min­i­mal­ist form with fash­ion­able design now makes this possible.

Ok, the guy men­tioned above is me (like you didn’t already know). Until recently, I would have told you that when it came to every­day wear, it would be hard to con­tinue wear­ing min­i­mal shoes – shoes that pro­mote a barefoot-like walk­ing form. I knew I wasn’t going to get away with wear­ing my Vibram Five Fin­gers to the office. They look too casual and even freaky. Show­ing up as a con­sul­tant at a For­tune 100 com­pany look­ing like I for­got to make the final change after a Hal­loween party was just not going to cut it. I was con­cerned that I would have to go back to the high heels and padded shoes because they were the only option in the workplace.

To my delight, I found Vivo Bare­foot by Terra Plana. Very hip and styl­ish shoes that allow me to enjoy just about all the ben­e­fits of going bare­foot all day, every day, no mat­ter the set­ting. The great folks at Vivo Bare­foot read some of my ear­lier posts about the virtues of bare­foot run­ning or at least wear­ing min­i­mal shoes and were kind enough to send me a pair of their Aqua shoes to test and review. Full dis­clo­sure: Terra Plana sent me a pair of their shoes for free with the under­stand­ing that I would write a review and post it to this blog. There were no other stip­u­la­tions. Here’s my review.

Review of Vivo Bare­foot Aqua

Sum­mary: Most of the ben­e­fits of going bare­foot with all the style of a designer shoe. While Vibram Five Fin­gers are hip­pie, Vivo Bare­foots are hip.

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions

Color: White Tum­bled Leather
Size: Euro­pean 46, UK 12, US 13 (shoes run small)
Mate­ri­als: Vivo Bare­foot Tech­nol­ogy™ – Agion® antibac­te­r­ial lin­ing and remov­able insole, Dura­tex punc­ture resis­tant layer, and Cosmo Com­fort™ TPU abra­sion resis­tant sole
Price: US $150

First Impres­sions

Sum­mary: Fun and styl­ish pack­ag­ing and fash­ion­able shoes with a strong reminder of how much mate­r­ial is recy­cled, in line with the company’s goals to be com­pletely sustainable.

The shoes came in a plain and sim­ple grey shoe box with the Terra Plana logo on the top. When I opened the box, though, my eyes were met with intrigu­ing grey and green iconog­ra­phy printed on the inside. Each icon explains a ben­e­fit of the shoe (Min­i­mum Chrome, Min­i­mum Glue, Light Weight, Locally Sourced, Water Resis­tant, Recy­cled, Mem­ory Foam, Flex, etc.). Each shoe comes in its own cloth bag. Lay­ing on top of the shoe bags is a hexag­o­nal tag (the hexa­gon is a design ele­ment used in a num­ber of places on the shoe and in mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als), a pam­phlet explain­ing the Vivo Bare­foot Tech­nol­ogy, and an Autumn/Winter 2009 cat­a­log booklet.

I felt like a kid open­ing a present on Christ­mas day. At first I didn’t want to move the book­lets or shoes because every­thing looked so per­fect. I quickly got over my hes­i­tance, though, and picked up one of the shoes in its bag. Printed on the grey cloth bag were the the com­pany logo and fol­low­ing words:

“Terra Plana aims to be the most inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able designer shoe brand in the world…Our choice of mate­ri­als include spe­cial chrome free leathers, veg­etable tanned leathers, recy­cled mate­ri­als such as quilts; cof­fee bags; jack­ets; shirts; jeans; leather car seat scraps; 90% pure latex soles or recy­cled rub­ber soles; 100% recy­cled foam footbeds and recy­cled card for shoe­boxes.” I sud­denly felt like I was doing more than open­ing a shoe box – I was help­ing to save the planet.

Other lit­tle touches through­out the open­ing expe­ri­ence remind me how the com­pany is look­ing out for the envi­ron­ment. A nat­ural string attaches the paper tags (though no recy­cle sym­bol on paper tags was present), the shoe box is both made from recy­cled mate­ri­als and recy­clable, and in the book­let you learn that Terra Plana’s shoes are made with a lot of recy­cled mate­ri­als and chrome free leather. The tags on the shoes men­tion that part of the shoes are made with a “nat­ural antimi­cro­bial” from Cosmo Com­fort. I won­dered how green Cosmo is, as the sus­tain­abil­ity of a man­u­fac­turer is depen­dent upon its part­ners’ sus­tain­abil­ity as well. A quick look at Starensier’s web­site (man­u­fac­tur­ers of Cosmo Com­fort) did not turn up any more infor­ma­tion about how eco-friendly the com­pany is.

I pulled one of the shoes out of its bag I was struck by how wide the mid-foot and toe box areas are. To be hon­est, the first thing that went through my mind was that these shoes looked dorky and out of date because they’re so wide. Over the last sev­eral years shoe fash­ion has trended toward more nar­row toe-boxes, so I feared these shoes would look out-dated or worse, like the orthotic shoes I remem­ber kids mak­ing fun of in ele­men­tary school.

As I con­tin­ued to exam­ine the shoe, though, my fears that they would look off-trend were quickly laid to rest. Clearly, care­ful atten­tion had been paid to every aspect of the shoe by a stel­lar design team. The design – from the cuts to the care­fully placed con­trast­ing white, black, and red col­ors, to the tex­tures and mate­ri­als used – helped me under­stand why these shoes have become favorites of trend­set­ters in Lon­don, LA, and other urban cen­ters around the world (they have been pro­filed in peri­od­i­cals such as New York Mag­a­zine, Marie Claire, Health and Fit­ness, and Out­door Adven­ture Guide, to name a few).

As I held the shoes in my hands I was amazed at how light they are. I instinc­tively exam­ined the shoe from all sides and stuck my hand into the shoe to see if there was any addi­tional heel or arch sup­port. I was delighted to find a very thin sole and min­i­mal in-sole. I remarked to my wife as she walked into the room, “Look how thin these soles are!” Hear­ing myself say this made me real­ize how weird it was that this was a pos­i­tive asset now. Up until a cou­ple of months ago no padding would have been used as a deroga­tory remark. I know bet­ter now.

Sup­port­ing Materials

In the nicely bound book­let is a cat­a­log of all of Terra Plana’s shoes as well as detailed expla­na­tions about the ben­e­fits of going bare­foot. The case for no padding, lots of flex­i­bil­ity, and a wide toe box was accom­pa­nied by an array of beau­ti­ful graph­ics (the ones shown below dif­fer slightly from those in the books).

As you can see in the images above, the com­pany is clearly say­ing that with Vivo Bare­foot tech­nol­ogy, you’ll land on your fore­foot which is bet­ter for your foot and over­all pos­ture. And with only a min­i­mal sole and in-sole between you and the ground, your foot’s many nerve end­ings will be stim­u­lated sim­i­larly to how they would if barefoot.

I have to say that I’m not a fan of using the label ‘Bare­foot Tech­nol­ogy.’ When it comes to shoes, most so-called tech­nol­ogy is just mar­ket­ing fluff. Not a sin­gle study has shown how any of the added springs, air, padding, shocks, or fill-in-the-blank tech­nolo­gies have helped reduce injuries. In fact, it’s usu­ally this added tech­nol­ogy that pro­motes injury, not pro­tects us from it. So when I see “Bare­foot Tech­nol­ogy,” it sounds like an oxy­moron. After all, going purely bare­foot means not using any tech­nol­ogy at all. I would argue that to get more bare­foot, you need to strip away any tech­nol­ogy from shoes. I sup­pose for some, though, who’ve become accus­tomed to see­ing the word “tech­nol­ogy” used to describe a shoe might find its use on a “Bare­foot” shoe com­fort­ing. Per­haps it makes them feel like they will have pro­tec­tion from bro­ken glass and the like. Per­son­ally, I pre­fer the word “natural”.

Design Fea­tures

The shoes have a num­ber of nice design ele­ments that enforce a good over­all style aes­thetic and rein­force a good design, such as the “V” on the back and the sole of the shoe. The stitch­ing is quite intri­cate and fre­quently mir­rors the “V’ design ele­ment as well.

A black elas­tic band loops around the back of the shoe and through a pull tab on the heel. Because the pull tab is not attached to the lip of the shoe, it does not prove very help­ful in get­ting the shoe onto your heel.

While parts of the shoe appear to be just mesh, it is just a style ele­ment on the out­side of the shoe.

First Steps

Sum­mary: Wide mid-foot and atten­tion to design details make for a nice fit yet leave room for the whole foot to feel the ground through a thin sole.

It’s impor­tant that you under­stand that up until this moment, my feet had not been in reg­u­lar shoes for nearly two months. After I read Born to Run I went bare­foot around the house and only wore my Vibram Five Fin­gers when I ven­tured away from the house. So my feet had been rather free for a long time. I felt my feet cringe as I slid them into the Aquas. How­ever, my feet and I simul­ta­ne­ously sighed in relief, as there was ample room inside. The wider mid-foot and toe box areas allow my feet to remain their nor­mal size – my toes were not scrunched together like they are in other shoes.

To say that my feet were com­fort­able in the Vivo Bare­foot Aquas would be mis­lead­ing, unless you’ve spent a decent amount of time bare­foot. When refer­ring to shoes, the adjec­tive “com­fort­able” usu­ally refers to plenty of padding and a rather snug fit. Wear­ing the Aquas, or most likely any Vivo Bare­foot shoe, rede­fines what com­fort­able is. I think “nat­ural” is a bet­ter way to describe how the shoes feel on me. Their light­ness and very min­i­mal padding in the in-sole, a thin sole, and ample room in the mid-foot actu­ally help the shoes live up to their name – they are quite close to going barefoot.

My first walks around the house and then out­side were mar­velous. I loved how the shoes felt on my feet. They don’t weigh me down and flex extremely well with every foot posi­tion I throw their way.

Styl­ish Min­i­mal Shoes at Last

To be hon­est, I feel a bit naughty each time I wear the Aquas. It’s how I would imag­ine I’d feel if I went com­mando (I said “imag­ine” folks). I get to expe­ri­ence the joys of wear­ing less, but it’s my own secret. No one knows that I have such min­i­mal shoes on! They sim­ply think I’m one styl­ish dude (at least from the feet down).

Until now, styl­ish, min­i­mal shoes had been an oxy­moron for me. I either had to wear the Vibram Five Fin­gers in pub­lic and draw atten­tion to myself or go back to reg­u­lar shoes and risk poor pos­ture or even injury. With the Vivo Bare­foot Aquas I can have my cake and eat it too, so to speak. I don’t have to give up on style when I choose to treat my feet well and walk how I would if I was bare­foot. To be hon­est, I feel a bit naughty each time I wear the Aquas. It’s how I would imag­ine I’d feel if I went com­mando (I said “imag­ine” folks). I get to expe­ri­ence the joys of wear­ing less, but it’s my own secret. No one knows that I have such min­i­mal shoes on! They sim­ply think I’m one styl­ish dude (at least from the feet down).

Why I Like the Vivo Bare­foot Aqua Shoes

Sum­mary: Phys­i­cally, the shoes feel great and pro­mote proper form (thought this can take some time to get used to). They hold up well on all sur­faces both walk­ing and run­ning. Emo­tion­ally, I feel good because they’re made with recy­cled mate­ri­als. Socially, the shoes look good and spark pos­i­tive com­ments from others.

I can sum up why I like the Vivo Bare­foot Aqua with three types of ben­e­fits: Phys­i­cal, Emo­tional, and Social.

Phys­i­cal Benefits

Wear­ing the Aquas has def­i­nitely made me walk dif­fer­ently. Land­ing on my heel too much begins to hurt, forc­ing me to land forefoot-first. This is par­tic­u­larly impor­tant for me because I had back surgery for a severe disc her­ni­a­tion in my lower back. If I were to walk how I used to – land­ing heel first with a straight leg – all the force of impact would be trans­ferred right into my lower back where I am still recov­er­ing from pre­vi­ous trauma. When I wear min­i­mal shoes like the Vivo Bare­foot Aquas I have to land with either a flat foot or forefoot-first.

I must admit that it took awhile to get used to this sort of foot­fall while walk­ing. This is per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant reminder that wear­ing the shoes is not the same as going bare­foot. When I walk com­pletely bare­foot I nat­u­rally land on the balls of my feet. How­ever, with my Vivo Bare­foot shoes or any min­i­mal shoe I’ve tried so far it becomes a bit of an effort to land cor­rectly. I think some of my trou­ble is due to still hav­ing a weak left calf (from a dam­aged nerve). It just takes some time to get used to.

I like how wear­ing the Vivo Bare­foot Aqua shoes strength­ens my foot and leg mus­cles instead of mak­ing them atro­phy. Instead of los­ing mus­cle while walk­ing, I now strengthen the mus­cles that will help me become a bet­ter run­ner. This is huge.

I gave the Aquas a run­ning test-spin on the trails and pave­ment to see how they hold up as run­ning shoes (I had to force myself to get over the fact that I might get them scratched up or dirty). On a nearby dirt trail strewn with small, sharp rocks, acorns, and sharp oak leaves, I took off. While I fig­ured the shoes would pro­tect my feet just fine from these objects, I was sur­prised at how good they felt to run in. Their com­plete flex­i­bil­ity allowed me to run nat­u­rally. Although plenty wide enough for my foot to flex and spread nat­u­rally, I did not get any sense that my feet were mov­ing around in them. When run­ning in them I had no trou­ble land­ing forefoot-first. They also grabbed the dry and dusty trail just fine.

Emo­tional Benefits

I feel bet­ter know­ing I’m tak­ing care of myself phys­i­cally. I also feel good know­ing that Terra Plana is eco-friendly. Terra Plana shoes have been favorites of the authors of Treehugger.com, a pre­mier web­site for a green lifestyle, from the begin­ning and even won a Best of Green award in 2009 for Best of Green Fash­ion and Beauty. Terra Plana is lead­ing the way in being an eco-friendly and sus­tain­able com­pany. We can only hope that other shoe com­pa­nies fol­low in their footsteps.

I feel good about a com­pany that says the fol­low­ing, and puts their hearts and soles into it.

“We want to make and design prod­ucts with a Total Beauty. Our goal is to cre­ate sus­tain­able prod­ucts and be a sus­tain­able com­pany in all dimen­sions: peo­ple, process, prod­uct, place and prof­its by the end of 2010.” – Terra Plana

Terra Plana rates each of their prod­ucts on an eco-scale. On their web­site you can see how every shoe stacks up and how the rat­ings are deter­mined. Here is how the Vivo Bare­foot Aqua shoe is rated:

There is some­thing to be said about wear­ing shoes that you know sup­port a com­pany doing every­thing they can to soften their impact on the planet.

Social Ben­e­fits

Per­haps the least expected ben­e­fit is a social one. The fact is, you look damn good in these shoes. Peo­ple notice them, and you. A woman at Peet’s who had seen me in my Vibram Five Fin­gers and had asked about them saw me sport­ing my Aquas one after­noon. She asked what kind of shoes they were. When I said they were also min­i­mal shoes, with just a 3mm sole and good width, she responded, “These ones get the votes of the women. I think my wife agrees with that state­ment, too. Know­ing you look good puts a pep in your step, which goes a long way no mat­ter what you’re try­ing to do. I’m not promis­ing these shoes will get you girls, guys, but I am promis­ing that the girls will notice. And I think I’d think a lit­tle bet­ter of a a girl who I saw sport­ing some Vivos.

My two daugh­ters and wife offered their thoughts on the shoes:

Cora­lyne, age 4: “I like parts of them, but there’s so much white.”

Annalie, age 7: “I like them, espe­cially the hon­ey­comb design [on the bot­tom of the sole and top of in-sole].”

My Wife said I used to be a styl­ish guy, but then it all went to hell when I ended up at home sick (wear­ing jeans, hat, and t-shirt every day). She now has some hope for me.

Terra Plana, the Company

Rarely do I come across a com­pany that fits so well with my inter­ests and val­ues. If I were to have started a shoe com­pany, I like to think it would be sim­i­lar to Terra Plana. With equal focus on proper form that pro­motes good pos­ture, on dis­tin­guished aes­thet­ics and fash­ion­able style, and on cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able busi­ness, Terra Plana is doing right on all fronts.

His­tory of Vivo Barefoot

The story of how Vivo Bare­foot shoes came into exis­tence is an intrigu­ing one. As most rad­i­cal inno­va­tions go, play, prac­tice, a good net­work, and a splash of serendip­ity lead Tim Bren­nan, a friend of Gala­had Clarke (head of Terra Plana and mem­ber of the renowned Clarks shoe fam­ily), to cre­ate the orig­i­nal Vivo Bare­foot shoe. Tim’s father was a teacher of the Alexan­der Tech­nique, a study and instruc­tion of nat­ural move­ment and heal­ing hark­ing back to the 1880s. As Tim prac­ticed ten­nis and the Alexan­der Tech­nique that espoused the ben­e­fits of walk­ing bare­foot, he began to pro­to­type a new type of ‘shoe’. Together with his train­ing in Indus­trial Design at the Royal Col­lege of Art and Galahad’s help, the Vivo shoe was born.

Terra Plana, the com­pany that makes Vivo Bare­foot, was orig­i­nally a Dutch shoe com­pany. The Clarks shoe com­pany, still a fam­ily busi­ness, bought the com­pany in 1998. Gala­had Clarke took over the reigns of the com­pany in 2004 and focused on cre­at­ing eco-friendly shoes, pay­ing atten­tion to the whole man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion process. The same year Ajoy Sahu, for­merly of Prada, became the company’s lead designer and cre­ated a women’s col­lec­tion. Today, Terra Plana con­tin­ues to grow with dis­tri­b­u­tion in over 30 coun­tries around the globe and stores in Lon­don, New York, Vienna, and Ljubljiana (Slovenia).

Check out Terra Plana’s full line of Vivo Bare­foot shoes now.

Remem­ber to use coupon code “Run­Quest” to get 20% off your full order at terraplana.com. They run on the smaller side, so you are prob­a­bly bet­ter off going up a size. There is a siz­ing chart on the web­site so you can fig­ure out the right UK size from an EU or US size. I look for­ward to hear­ing how they work out for you!

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