Five years ago, Galahad Clark was on a quest to find the world’s most perfect feet. His search led him to the crimson sands of the Namibian Kalahari desert, where he met a wizened cobbler from the San bushmen tribe making ersatz sandals from old car tyres. The improvised material may have been rudimentary – hunting restrictions meant the shoemaker couldn’t use his usual eland antelope skins – but the sandals were thin soled, tailor-made for each individual tribesperson’s feet, and adapted to the rugged environment that the wearer would be running or hunting in.
“San bushmen are arguably as close to original humans as it gets – with perfect natural movement, plus healthy feet and posture,” says Galahad, co-founder of the ethical shoe brand Vivobarefoot. “They run on hot sands at pace, but the only pain they experience is when wearing [conventional] shoes. Many of the younger people there are starting to wear crap secondhand trainers from charities – ‘dead white man’s clothing’, as they call it – and you can see their feet are starting to develop different shapes to older generations who have only gone barefoot or worn sandals. The elders [moan]: ‘Bloody kids, they won’t move in the same way that we do!’”
Galahad may have stumbled upon flawless feet in the San tribe, but his lifelong mission to find the perfect, most sustainable shoe continues. Just like the Namibian cobbler, Galahad’s family has been making shoes for generations, but he was inspired to produce shoes that replicate the sensation of walking barefoot in the early 2000s. An old friend, Tim Brennan, showed him a pair of trainers he’d modified to make more anatomically correct by shaving the soles. The epiphany led Galahad to the conviction that conventional, cushioned trainers, produced by “big shoe” manufacturers, were nothing more than a podiatrist’s nightmare, with brands “operating blind when making shoes – they have little understanding about how the foot works, keeping podiatrists profitably selling foot cures caused by shoes themselves”.
For the past 10 years, Galahad has come close to realising his ambitions via his brand: lightweight shoes with thin soles that are designed to promote natural movement and help the feet grow stronger. By incorporating learnings from indigenous groups such as the San tribe into its shoes, the brand is carving out a new future: one that doesn’t just result in healthy feet, but “takes customers on a transformative back-to-nature health journey”, too.
As such, the brand now offers experiences to jolt us from our sedentary lifestyles, ranging from bushcraft retreats to open-water swimming.
“The message we’re trying to deliver to our customers is to reject the cushioned life, get out of your comfort zone,” says Bayarma Clark, Galahad’s wife, who heads up their children’s range. “We know mass consumerism and corporations are killing the planet, and we’re trying to provide an alternative.”
Vivobarefoot co-founder Galahad Clark
Vivobarefoot wearers regularly report feeling more attune to their environment. The brand’s footwear allow customers to literally feel the ground underneath their feet, in a way that “big shoe” wearers can’t.
“The part of our brain that gets information from our feet is the same size as the part of our brain that gets information from our hands,” says Galahad. “This sensory feedback is essential to our overall vitality as humans – it’s how we’ve been designed for two million years – and walking around in padded shoes in a concrete world effectively cuts off this part of the brain. Studies have even linked it to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”
Embracing being barefoot can also make children calmer. Research by Bournemouth University professor Stephen Heppell found that shoeless schools (which are commonplace in Scandinavia) reported better behaviour in children, and even a decrease in bullying. “It seems to be difficult to be a bully with your shoes off,” says Heppell.
Vivobarefoot also wants shoes to be more sustainable: more than 90% of the 24bn pairs of trainers produced each year, the majority made from harmful petrochemical plastics, end up in landfill.
“Shoes aren’t meant to be recycled,” says Galahad. “Because they consist of hard bits stuck to soft bits – they’re different materials that stick together extremely well, making them difficult to dissemble.”
To address this, Vivobarefoot has introduced Revivo, an e-commerce marketplace that repairs 1,000 pre-loved shoes a week, before selling them on at a reduced price.
As part of its plans to become “fully regenerative”, Vivobarefoot has an impact investment hub, the Livebarefoot Fund, which invests in philanthropic research and supports community projects in developing nations. From December, 1.5% of the firm’s turnover will be used to back the scheme.
“We work with indigenous communities to set up workshops to preserve craftsmanship and local enterprises, before bringing them to market,” says Dulma Clark, head of the Livebarefoot Fund. “We didn’t want the craftsmanship of the elderly guy making sandals in the Kalahari to die out, so we raised money to train eight other cobblers in the area, while also launching collaborations using their techniques.” Vivobarefoot has also produced limited edition Jean-Michel Basquiat shoes bearing the artist’s work, handmade in Ethiopia using material sourced from smallholder farmers.
The brand’s principles (it’s a B Corp company, too) can be traced back to the Clark family’s Quaker traditions – doing good deeds is a key tenet of Quakerism. “Vivobarefoot was definitely founded on Quaker values of equality and peace,” says Dulma. “Galahad’s forefathers were involved with the abolition of slavery, prison reform and the suffragette movement: anything to do with creating a more peaceful, fairer world.”
The brand also aims to start using 3D printing to create more sustainable shoes. The team took foot scanners to the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow to demonstrate its potential.
“3D printing offers us a chance to go back to making bespoke shoes from local sustainable materials,” says Galahad. “Using LiDAR scanners on your smartphone, you could scan your feet, regeneratively design a shoe and then print it out in your local depot … Modern technology will bring humanity back to having footwear like we did 10,000 years ago with shoes made bespoke for people’s feet.”
This synthesis of cutting-edge tech and ancestral traditions will be crucial, says Galahad (a hip-hop fan whose career includes collaborating with the Wu-Tang Clan and Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas on shoe lines).
“The real goal for us is being like the San bushmen or cobblers from 10,000 years ago, where people were making shoes, person by person, foot by foot. Let’s get back to having shoes that are locally made, as and when you need them. ‘Big shoe’ isn’t working. We need a radically different system to protect people’s feet.”
To start your barefoot journey, head to vivobarefoot.com
