Vibram’s path to becoming fashion’s go-to sneaker sole

On the shelves of a small shoe shop on City Road, east London, sit shoes from Church’s, Converse, On Running and Red Wing; a polished pair from Prada is being boxed up, ready to be shipped. I approach the counter, clutching some black buckled Gucci flats.

“What can we do with these?” I ask. I’m not about to drop half my monthly rent on a pair of new loafers; I’m actually at the Vibram Academy, one of 10 global renovation shops under official licence by the Italian outsole firm renowned for its high-tech rubber grip. Priced from £40, there’s more than 1,500 soles to choose from here; the Academies are distinct from ordinary cobblers in that they offer only soles by Vibram and focus on redesign as well as repair.

“We can resole any type of shoe by any brand, new or old,” says Frank Povey, a master of the trade who recently attached a mountain tread to a woolly sock for Pringle of Scotland’s in-store displays. “We get young guys in with rare vintage Nikes or Timberlands and lots of fashion students wanting colourful soles,” he says. In April, the Academy hosted an evening with Orienteer, a trendy new magazine that straddles the realm of fashion and function. Creatives, skaters and climbers descended to customise their kicks. “The possibilities are endless.”

The distinct yellow Vibram tag — an earmark of utility — is also appearing on the soles of fashion styles you definitely wouldn’t trek up a peak in. At Raf Simons and Dries Van Noten, the Vibram tag can be found on slides and strappy sandals that would look at home poolside. Paul Smith put them on everyday trainers, while Stella McCartney used them on slingback heeled clogs festooned with decorative gold chains, and Fracap and Belstaff do smart-casual styles you could wear to a wedding. Even Vans and Clarks, the latter renowned for its crepe treads, have released versions of their best-selling styles equipped with its rugged soles.

Other labels are proposing the FiveFingers — Vibram’s barefoot shoes that look like slightly odd gloves-for-your-feet — as an avant-garde slipper. Created in 2004 as Vibram’s first own-brand silhouette, they have a slightly chequered history. In 2014, Vibram agreed without admission of any wrongdoing to a $3.75mn (£2.2mn) class-action settlement after customers filed a suit in 2012 saying they had been misled by claims over the health benefits of the shoes.

Undeterred, for SS22, British designer Matty Bovan decorated them with sequins and bows for his show. Balenciaga, meanwhile, has offered heeled versions, while Suicoke painted its bootie iteration with varnished nails. “They look like a future human shoe,” says Bovan. “They’re chic, unobtrusive and feel amazing.”

This peaking interest is paying off. “We are closing on a record year, our sales are up about 50 per cent year on year, in 2022,” says Fabrizio Gamberini, president and chief brand officer of Vibram, speaking over Zoom from the company offices in Boston. Vibram was known for decades as a manufacturing brand; Gamberini attributes its newfound fashionability to a change in marketing strategy pre-Covid. “We were always talking about technical specifics, but they don’t mean much to consumers,” he says. In 2019, Vibram instead started communicating qualities such as trust and stability — a feeling rather than a function. “People formed an emotional attachment to the brand,” Gamberini says.

As outdoors wear infiltrates everyday wardrobes, urbanites everywhere are sporting Arc’teryx jackets and trail sneakers from Solomon, Scarpa, La Sportiva and Norda: Vibram supplies the latter three. “It really kicked off during the pandemic, with a customer demand for comfort, performance and multifunctional pieces,” says Joe Brunner, a menswear buyer for Browns Fashion, which stocks Norda.

The logo is now inspirational fodder, its lemon lettering often Instagrammed by the Gen Z backpack crowd, for whom the kit is as key as the camping. For them, like Gore-Tex, Vibram is cool. “Audiences are as drawn to these [performance] tags as they are to the footwear or clothing itself,” says Brunner. “Luxury brands are taking note.”

Gamberini agrees. “All brands are tapping into the hiking success story.” While 70 per cent of company sales come from mountaineering — which will “always be the core of Vibram, without question” — its fashion presence is growing fast. And there’s a crossover emerging: fashion brands, keen to cater to the outdoors crowd, are now offering slick backpacker silhouettes.

“They are very small order quantities compared to Merrell or Under Armour — 10,000 or 20,000 versus half a million per run,” says Gamberini. (The company also supplies Danner, which outfits the US armed forces and was worn by Daniel Craig in his James Bond movies.) “But the lifestyle element is important for us to innovate and grow.”

Adam Lewenhaup, the founder of Swedish brand CQP, which uses Vibram soles on boots and sneakers, likens the rugged soles to “Land Rovers for your feet . . . [you can wear them] in the mountains, but they work equally well in the city”. Gamberini says urbanites are an untapped crowd for the firm. “You have wet, icy or snowy surfaces in New York, Milan or Chicago . . . we can provide technology.” Indeed, in the Academy, one customer had brought in a new pair of brogues to be resoled with rubber, with a view to staying upright on a slippery commute. Also handy for the working wardrobe is Vibram’s new “pocket shoe” — effectively a ballet slipper equipped with a superfine sole that can be rolled up and carried in a jacket.

The tag has today taken on a life of its own but there are potential downsides to going mass. Vibram experienced this when it over-distributed the FiveFingers shoe. “You could almost buy [them] in 7/11s here in the US,” says Gamberini. “That’s the way to kill a brand. Now, we’re keeping it select, we’re not supplying our soles to everybody . . . Vibram can be expanded and delivered on different latitudes.” Without, he hopes, ever reaching the summit.

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