Behind the Material: Vibram
When it comes to outdoor footwear, no branding is more recognisable than the iconic yellow Vibram octagon. Started as material purely aimed at the outdoor adventurer market, Vibram has over the last decade expanded into the more mainstream and lifestyle apparel, while still remaining the hallmark for quality when it comes to outsoles. With more and more sneakers at Shelflife now including Vibram, like our New Balance Tokyo Studio or even some Suicokes, it's worth while taking a look at the brief history of the Vibram brand.
Since Vibram soles (pronounced “Vee-bram”) are so often associated with American footwear, it might surprise you that it’s actually an Italian company. The company went into business in 1937, named after Italian mountaineer and brand founder Vitale Bramani.
The necessity of the brand, however, reveals something much more tragic. Two years earlier, Bramani was on an expedition in the Italian Alps where six of his friends died in a mountaineering accident. Bramani believed much of the blame was due to poor footwear. At the time, mountaineers commonly wore smooth leather soles fitted with steel cleats or hobnails. After working on the design following the tragedy, Bramani patented the first rubber lug sole.
The first model was called the Carrarmato, meaning “tank tread” in Italian, due to its thick stamped footprint. Vibram still produces the Carrarmato to this day. Vibram’s produced soles in the same manner as Pirelli’s tires, Bramani’s rubber soles provided superb traction on a wide variety of surfaces, as well as being extremely durable.
After the initial release of his first lug sole, Bramani’s Vibram brand continued to grow. In 1945, their first production facility opened in Albizzate, Italy. The brand’s mountaineering legacy was rock solid in 1954 when an Italian team became the first to summit the mountain K2–all while wearing boots fitted with Vibram soles. A decade later in 1965, Vibram had spread to North America and the rest is history.
Today, you can find Vibram soles on pretty any premium footwear looking for the best when it comes to outsoles. You'll see it on the crazy 5-finger exercise shoe (that Supreme even released), to Japanese icons like Visvim, heritage US boots like Red Wing, Clarks and even the Matthew M. Williams x Nike release. Vibram has transcended the outdoor world, appealing to the most cutting-edge and classic footwear styles alike.
Source: Heddels, Vibram EU, Sneakerfreaker