GALAHAD CLARK ’ 99
DAN SEARS ’ 74
‘I was a young
man, it was
April, everything
was in bloom,
and there were
all these pretty
Southern belles
— it was like
I’d died and
gone to heaven.
I was with some
very bright
people, and my
lasting memories
are of sitting
on the porch
on one of those
balmy evenings
with my best
friends —
it couldn’t have
been more
idyllic.’
Galahad Clark
shoes in 2005 to 180,000 pairs in 2009,
finishing 2008 $500,000 in the black
(though only about $200,000 was profit,
Clark notes: “We’ve invested a lot, we’re
still paying back loans.”)
Even with the global economic downturn, sales are predicted to increase 50
percent in 2009, he says, and earlier this
year he and investors set up Terra Plana
Retail, to focus on U.K. rollout. They
recently opened Terra Plana’s third London store, bringing the number of Terra
Plana stores worldwide to eight (two in
New York, and one each in Vienna;
Guangzhou, China; and Ljubljana, Slovenia). Another store in London is scheduled
to open in the spring, and one in Los
Angeles is set for the fall. Plans are afoot
for shops in many other cities.
Although it has been criticized for
producing most of its products in China,
Terra Plana’s largely been lauded for manufacturing shoes in ways that cause minimal harm to the environment and use
eco-friendly and recycled materials, and
for being the first footwear company to
use “E-leather” — an ultra-strong, smooth
piece of material made from a rewoven
mix of leather off-cuts and textiles. It won
Drapers’ Best Ethical Footwear Retailer of
the Year Award in 2008 and The Observer
newspaper’s Ethical Fashion Product
award in 2007; its innovative products, all
of which include recycled elements, regularly appear in various international
media, from Vogue Italy to Financial Times
and Sportswear International.
Not bad for somebody who didn’t
want to get into the shoe business in the
first place.
Playing on field and stage
Galahad Clark crawled among leather
scraps on the floor as his father made
shoes by hand at the kitchen table in the
family home in Street, Somerset, where in
1828 Quaker brothers Cyrus and James
Clark founded the Clarks business as a
sheepskin tannery, making their mark with
sheepskin slippers. Galahad Clark, the eldest of four, grew up learning how to make
shoes in local factories and spent considerable time in Europe; the family enjoyed
Christmases in Austria’s mountains and
lived for several years in France, so Clark
became fluent in German and French.
From his driven, “disciplinarian and
scientific” Austrian mother, a doctor of
psychology and a proficient tennis player
and skier, Clark inherited his athletic talents and was rugby captain at Millfield
School, an independent school renowned
Clark and Jeff Pike
’ 98 founded a
scholarship program
for economically
disadvantaged
Zimbabwean
children known as
Students 4 Students
while in Chapel Hill.
They also coached
the women’s rugby
team together. “I
don’t think I’ve ever
worked more effectively with someone
to get a project off
the ground,” Pike
said.
