Clarks has long been a staple in the shoe industry, a legacy footwear brand responsible for everything from slippers to slides (my personal favourite is their range of women’s boots).
As a seventh generation Clark, Galahad Clark is no stranger to the business, but chooses to take it in his own direction, experimenting with 3-D printed shoes and experimenting with material.
This experimentation led to the creation of the Vivobarefoot Ultra Blooms, set to be released this July.
The material for the shoe is created from a base of algae, which is dehydrated and then combined with polymers to create a foam-like material. This makes the Vivobarefoot Ultra Blooms soft, light and flexible enough to be balled up and retain their shape after. They feature a wafer-thin sole, designed to feel the rugged earth, topped with a perforated upper. They’re designed to withstand any terrain, from dry land to rivers and oceans, with the Croc-like holes built to flush out moisture.
Their environmental benefits are pretty great too—each pair recycles 57 gallons of filtered water back into areas previously contaminated with algae, and reduces carbon dioxide levels in the air caused by the excess algae. It’s on a par with EVA, the material previously used to cushion athletic material, in terms of pricing, accessibility and performance.
Each pair will be priced at $75 and will come only in algae green-blue, due to the unusual material.
People seem pretty excited about it too—when I asked my friend, environmentalist and vegan extraordinaire, she immediately asked where she could get a pair.
Personally, I think they’d be a wonderful accessory to the water treadmill, just for other people and not me, if only because there’s too much time to be spent sitting aimlessly on the couch.
