Every year in early August thousands of active and outdoorsy types descend on Salt Lake City, Utah for the Outdoor Retailer Show. There are over 1000 booths filled with everything you could ever want for hiking, climbing, paddling, camping and just about every other sport you could ever imagine doing outside… and even some you can’t imagine people do anywhere.
There is a great representation of shoe companies at OR, and while most of them are more traditional in their footwear selection, there is a rising tide of minimalist shoes. Kigo, Altra, Vivo, Luna, Vibram, Merrell all had booths and were very busy showing off their latest shoes. Even the larger, more well known brands are showing minimalist styles even if (in our view) most of them don’t quite get it yet.
SKORA shoes won’t be available in stores until February 2012 so it was too early for us to have a booth. We did manage to give some folks a look at the samples we had brought along, and the reaction was even more positive than we could have hoped. The energy and support we received at the show was a great boost to keep us sprinting forward in launching our new company. Special thanks to Barefoot Ted (Luna Sandles), and the folks at Altra, Vivo and Kigo for being so welcoming and honest.
Upon returning from the OR Show, we’ve been showing the shoes to select retailers in the Northwest and so far folks are really liking the shoes. It looks as if this long journey of creating SKORA shoes is going to take off like a rocket… We just hope we’ve ordered enough shoes for the Spring.