Toms Shoes for Tomorrow

by Rebecca Carter January 12, 2007
Categories: Fashion, People.

Remember the cute, almost creepy brother & sister team from Amazing Race 2? Blake & Page made it to third place in the game, allowing us a long time to get to know them. That’s why when I saw a pod on Current TV yesterday about Toms Shoes, I knew I knew this guy!

TOMS Shoes for Tomorrow was founded by Blake Mycoskie, based on a typical shoe of Argentina – alpargatas. It is a socially responsible, for-profit business. For every pair of shoes that Toms sells, a pair of shoes is donated to a child in need.

Toms has gotten a lot of media attention lately, and is a favorite of Sienna Miller and designer Karl Lagerfeldt. Plus a little marketing ploy that Blake does? He alwaysÂ wears a different shoe on each foot. Why? So that someone will ask him about it, and he can tell them about Toms.Â

The shoes will run you around $38, and the “tiny toms” for kids will launch in 2007. Too cute.

The video below covers theirÂ Shoe Drop 2006, where they delivered shoes to children in South America. Blake said that he will never hand a child their pair of shoes.Â Each childÂ gets the shoes placed directly on their feet,Â to give them each extra attention, touch and love. Â

About Rebecca Carter

Rebecca Carter is the Co-Founder of Ecorazzi. Rebecca was recently featured in the book Hot, Rich, and Green. She is one of 70 eco-achievers featured in Glamour magazine in April 2009, named Best of Green 2010 by Miami Magazine and Best Environmentalist by Miami New Times Best of 2008. She's raising a couple of little boys in Miami and speaks English & Spanish. Find out more at www.RebeccaCarter.net. Follow Rebecca on Twitter: @rebeccacarter

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anon

I’m new to the whole green thing.

I love TOMS shoes. They are clearly “green” from what I can read online.

There’s another group I read about but I’m wondering what defines the “greenness” of a shoe (in particular). If a shoe is all cloth and made in no-sweatshop conditions, is that green? If there’s no artificial elements – it’s all organic – is that all it takes to be green? If the shoe has 5% leather can it still be green – or is the leather issue only for the veggitarians?

I’m sorry, I’m just new to this. Can you check out Buy Shoes. Save Lives. and give an opinion? My friends and I were wondering as we get greener.

http://buyshoessavelives.com
anon

I don’t think that TOMS are green at all, at least not yet. They use conventional cotton (not organic), regular dyes (not toxic-free) and chromium-tanned leather (not eco leather).
They don’t even talk about their “no sweatshop credo” anymore and with their move of manufacturing to China, they should be explaining more about how they make sure they are not supporting sweatshops. Also, why did they move most of their manufacturing from Argentina? TOMS logo is the Argentine flag and the shoes are a traditional Argentine shoe. Giving away a pair free is a cool idea, but it seems to me that if Blake made sure that the workers in the factories were paid well, they could buy shoes for their our children. But then, what would be the marketing catch..
http://www.tomsshoefans.com TOMS

Checkout some of the ways people have customized their Toms shoes.