Sweet EVOlution

Overview

When Terra Plana asked if I would be will­ing to test and review a pair of their new EVO run­ning shoes I was thrilled. I had been enjoy­ing wear­ing the Aqua shoes they gave me almost every day since I received them last year. Now, with a shoe designed specif­i­cally for run­ning, I couldn’t wait to give them a try.

Full dis­clo­sure: I was given a pair of EVO for free by Terra Plana to test and review on this blog. How­ever, Terra Plana did not spec­ify to any degree what I should write about, nor even how I should share my review. I am also listed as a “Friend” of the com­pany on their website.

Spec­i­fi­ca­tions of Pair Reviewed

Color: White/Red
Size: Euro­pean 46, UK 12, US 13
Weight: 8 oz
Mate­ri­als: TPU Cage with breath­able mesh and light­weight micro fiber rein­force­ments
Price: US $160

First Impres­sions

Sum­mary: Terra Plana’s first entrance into the run­ning shoe mar­ket with their Vivo Bare­foot line is a stun­ner. Its light­weight and strik­ing design makes for a very com­fort­able run­ning shoe.

I eagerly opened the box and took out the shoes. I had seen pho­tos of the shoes so was intent on look­ing at the honey-comb design close up. The shoes are quite impres­sive. I found the shoes to be very light, too. Turn­ing the shoe over I noticed the hon­ey­comb pat­tern con­tin­ued under­neath to form what looked like a good grip.

I put them on with no socks. As I slid my foot into the shoe I became con­cerned that my feet would over­heat. I then looked closer and real­ized that the mid­dle of each hon­ey­comb shape on the upper is filled with a breath­able mesh.

After wear­ing the EVO for an hour around the house I took the insoles out. Though very thin and light­weight, I found no need for any­thing extra under my sole. I have worn the EVO this way ever since and even threw the insoles into the garbage. I sim­ply don’t need them.

Review of Terra Plana EVO shoes.

I have worn the EVO quite exten­sively over the past 3 months, giv­ing them a good, solid test under a vari­ety of con­di­tions. I’ve prob­a­bly worn the shoes on aver­age 4–5 days a week. I’ve worn them run­ning on the asphalt around my neigh­bor­hood and in a 5k down­town San Fran­cisco, on the trails nearby, to work, around town, and to my cross­fit classes. I wear them a lot – on aver­age, prob­a­bly at least 3 days a week.

Size and Weight

It almost goes with­out say­ing, given Vivo Barefoot’s rep­u­ta­tion as lead­ers in min­i­mal footwear, that the EVO are very min­i­mal. Their sole is quite thin, only 4 mil­lime­ters thick, and the heel to fore­foot dif­fer­en­tial – basi­cally, the amount of heel – is zero.

The EVO not only look light­weight but feel very min­i­mal when worn. Their sleek, trans­par­ent design make them look more like some­thing you’d see on the feet of a sprinter on the track. I can’t help but run fast wear­ing them as they feel so stream­lined and light.

While the EVO look quite nar­row, it’s a bit of an opti­cal illu­sion. When I mea­sured them against my Aquas, which look a lot wider upon first glance, the dif­fer­ence in width between the two was notice­able, but rather small.

Wear and Tear

The shoes held up well under every con­di­tion I put them through. They gripped dusty trails well and even worked fine on pave­ment in 115 degrees Fahren­heit in Palm Springs.

DO NOT WASH IN WASHING MACHINE! The EVO clean up well in the wash­ing machine but I found out the hard way that they will tear. I was afraid some of the dye might bleed but there was no such prob­lem, so wash­ing them by hand is the way to go.

Design and Look

Designed by Terra Plana’s head designer, Asher Clark, the EVO look about as good as run­ning shoes can. I’ve prob­a­bly had nearly 100 peo­ple ask about the shoes, always com­ment­ing how cool they look. It’s obvi­ous a lot of thought went into the design. The hon­ey­comb pat­tern, and espe­cially how this pat­tern changes size across the shoe is quite beau­ti­ful. The dual-tone col­ors com­ple­ment each other well yet keep the shoes look­ing sim­ple and, well, minimal.

The white pair I tested looked dirty soon after I began to run in them, though. The hon­ey­comb mesh is great for breatha­bil­ity but dust can eas­ily get stuck in it leav­ing the shoes look­ing a dirty brown quite quickly. I was able to get most of the dirt out and return them to an off-white by wash­ing them (DO NOT WASH THEM IN THE WASHING MACHINE).

It’s worth not­ing that the EVO are 100% vegan. They are made using no leather or ani­mal dyes. This is only one aspect of the company’s sig­nif­i­cant efforts to reduce their impact on the world and those who habi­tat it.

Fit

Unlike the other Vivo Bare­foot styles, the EVOs run true to size. While this is prob­a­bly a good thing for new cus­tomers try­ing to find the right fit, I ordered the same size as I wear my Aquas in. I ended up in a pair that are a lit­tle too big for me, espe­cially since I wear them with­out socks or the insole. The result was a lit­tle slip­page back and forth at first which gave me some blis­ter. How­ever, for some unknown rea­son, that doesn’t bother me so much now. I will def­i­nitely get my usual size next time and not a size big­ger as I had to do with my Vivo Bare­foot Aqua shoes.

Bot­tom Line

The EVO are a very com­fort­able min­i­mal run­ning shoe. Their light­ness makes run­ning in them a joy and their sleek design is unique and quite beau­ti­ful. The only down­side I noticed was that the thin mesh uppers can eas­ily tear and dust stuck in the mesh. This only affects their aes­thet­ics and not func­tion, though, as the tears won’t run.

Com­pany Background

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).

Get a pair of EVO!

Terra Plana has gen­er­ously pro­vided a 40% dis­count. Go to their web­site and use coupon code EVO40 at check­out to receive the dis­count. But hurry, this offer expires soon.

What do you think?

Have a com­ment or a ques­tion? I’d love to hear from you.

Image cred­its: Terra Plana