TOMS SHOES - Company History

Company History

Blake Mycoskie first visited the country of Argentina while competing in the second season of The Amazing Race with his sister in 2002. He returned there on vacation in January 2006, where he noticed that the local polo players were wearing a form of shoes called alpargatas; a simple canvas slip-on shoe that he himself began to wear. The shoes have also been worn by Argentine farmers for hundreds of years and were the inspiration for the classic style of Toms shoes. They are made from canvas or cotton fabric and are now manufactured in many styles including a cordones, botas, wedges, stitchouts, and wrap boots. The sole is constructed of rubber. Later in the trip he was doing some volunteer work in the outskirts of Buenos Aires when he noticed that many of the children were running through the streets barefooted. After discovering that a lack of shoes was a wider problem in Argentina and other developing countries than just this one community, he decided that he wanted to develop a kind of alpargata for the North American market, with the caveat that for every pair sold he would provide a new pair of shoes free of charge to the shoeless youth of Argentina and other developing nations. Mycoskie had learned that the lack of shoes was a problem that had a serious impact upon these youth, threatening the ability of the children to go to school, prevent infection, and so forth.

He took the idea to Argentinian shoe manufacturers and began building the company based on this idea, and initially made 250 pairs of shoes. The company first officially began selling its shoes in May 2006. After an article ran in the Los Angeles Times, the company received order requests for nine times the available stock online, and 10,000 pairs were sold in the first six months. The first batch of free shoes were distributed in October 2006 to Argentinian children, the number was equivalent to the amount of stock sold: ten thousand. The company was self-financed, as Mycoskie sold his online driver education company for $500,000 to fund the shoe company. The company name (TOMS) is derived from the word "tomorrow," and evolved from the original concept, "Shoes for Tomorrow Project."

In 2007 the company launched an annual "One Day Without Shoes" event where adherents do not wear shoes throughout the day in order to raise awareness for Toms' mission for clothing impoverished children. The day to raise awareness has had partners such as AOL, Flickr, and the Discovery Channel that help to promote the event. By 2011 over 500 retailers were carrying the brand globally; that year it also launched its eyewear line. By 2012 over two million pairs of new shoes had been given to children in developing countries around the world. The Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative at the University of New Mexico describes the company as "a for-profit business with a philanthropic component". By 2011 over 500 retailers were carrying the brand globally.