GALAHAD CLARK ’ 99
“I grew up in a shoemaking family, but
I was determined not to be a shoemaker,”
says Clark, the seventh generation in a line
of well-respected cobblers. He graduated
with an honors degree in international
studies. “I was interested in being an academic and staying in a university environment, but then I got swept up with Asia
and wanted to go there and found jobs
that took me there.”
Shoes found him sometime later — an
episode of family fate intervened. Clark’s
thriving business now springs from his
belief that we’d all be better off barefoot.
“Shoes are bad for you,” he says, “shoes
are bad for the world.”
GRAPHICS AND PHOTOS COURTESY OF TERRA PLANA
Vivo Barefoot has an ultra-thin
puncture resistant sole that
allows you to walk as if barefoot
strengthens
muscles
puncture
resistant
stimulates
nerves
Going bare
Clark launched Vivo in 2003 after two
years of development with London Royal
College of Art industrial design student
and tennis player Tim Brennan, who came
up with the shoe after his chronic ankle
and foot injuries disappeared when he
played tennis barefoot — and after a
growing body of podiatric research
showed walking barefoot is best for the
human body.
The Vivo philosophy departs from the
basic tenets of shoe design, which aim
to fix our feet’s failings, particularly in
connection with hard urban surfaces. As
Dishan Singh, president of the British
Orthopedic Foot and Ankle
Society says, “The
human body is best
adapted to walk barefoot
on grass or mud. Walking
barefoot all day on concrete or asphalt can cause
problems such as heel pain
or pain in the ball of the
foot. Walking on cushioning
shoes can counteract the effect
of walking on hard surfaces.”
But according to Clark and
other barefoot proponents, individuals sense the ground better when
barefoot (or virtually so) and adjust
their gait to avoid hard heel strikes
against the pavement, thereby walking
more naturally. Inflexible shoes, says Clark,
pretty much splint the feet and prevent
them from moving in their natural range,
which can mean problems like weakened
or collapsed arches.
Speaking to a London College of
natural flex
Fashion graduating class last summer,
Clark said, “The best thing we can do is
make products that people love and will
wear for a long time, just like your
favorite jeans. … Vivo allows you to feel
the ground, flex all your muscles in their
natural way and gain a natural posture and
walking style as we were designed. The
shoes last a long time, and people get
hooked on the back-to-basics enlivening
experience.”
In the past five years, Clark has developed two international footwear-related
companies that sell shoes of all sorts. The
first is Terra Plana, the artisan shoe business
Clark took over from his father in 2003
and remade into a dynamic, environmen-
tally sustainable shoe company that houses
his brands of Vivo Barefoot, Dopie (the
simplest of sandals, where the single-shape
sole also folds up between the toes for con-
trol). Terra Plana also houses the brand
Worn Again, a collection of shoes and
accessories made from 99 percent recy-
cled materials (such as seatbelts, bicy-
cle tires, even airplane seat cushion
covers) that Clark helped create;
and Soul of Africa, a project that
trains unemployed women in
South Africa to hand-stitch
shoes, enabling them to sup-
port their families, and devel-
ops projects to help children
affected by AIDS.
At United Nude, which
Clark founded in 2003 with
Dutch architect Rem D. Koolhaas
as an “iconic brand at the intersection of
design and fashion,” architectural pieces
often trigger shoe concepts, as in the case
of the company’s launch product, the
Möbius. Inspired by the frame of Mies
