________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Founded on the simple insight that barefoot footwear is regenerative to human health, Vivobarefoot has built its brand around a radical conviction – the best shoe is as close to no shoe as possible. Galahad Clark, CEO and Founder of the barefoot shoe company, believes the industry is on the cusp of a fundamental shift.“ Everybody is walking around in shoes that disconnect them from nature, don’ t fit properly, and weaken and deform their feet,” he states.“ That is the exact problem we’ re addressing.”
The recent launch of Vivo Biome – a 3D-printed, fully bespoke footwear system – is his answer to the problem. For retailers, it represents a model that could reshape how footwear is designed, sold and experienced. In May, Vivobarefoot launched the second iteration of Biome in Europe, in partnership with Carbon, a leading 3D printing technology company. The concept is straightforward in principle, if extraordinary in execution; customers have their feet scanned before having a pair of shoes printed specifically for them. The initial offering centers on sandals, with further styles to follow, and a US rollout is planned before the end of the year.
Galahad, who is also fondly known as‘ chief ecosystem officer’, tells Retail Merchandiser that Biome is the culmination of five years of research and development( R & D), and millions of pounds worth of investment.“ A significant part of the R & D concerns the algorithm that translates a scan into an accurate 3D print, being both scanner-agnostic and printeragnostic.” The goal is a system flexible enough to work across different scanning hardware and printing platforms – a scalable infrastructure rather than a proprietary closed loop.
In the near term, Vivobarefoot is building out a global network of scanning locations paired with local 3D printing facilities. The longer-term ambition is mobile scanning, where customers scan their own feet using a smartphone and production happens close to where they live.“ We envisage a shoe industry
38