I just got back from a two week trip to New Zealand. What an incredible country. The best way for me to describe it is: "Lake Tahoe meets Hawaii". It’s that amazing of a place. We toured the South Island and drew a TON of inspiration from the Kiwi culture as well as spoke with dozens of folks who live in flops year round.
During that same time Rao has been focusing efforts on the south-west market of the US. Specifically Texas. We will have a lot more on that effort shortly.
Rao and Hema just got back from a trip to Goa where they put a few of our latest designs to the test! Goa is located on the west coast of India in a region known as Konkan. Known for its beautiful beaches and comfortable climate, Goa pulls visitors from all over the world as a resort destination. Perfect for testing out Common Soles flip-flops!
So as many of you know, Rao is in India right now working on new product. He’s come up with some really cool ideas and found some interesting new materials for us to work with. (Not bad for a recovering IT manager!!) I covered some of the new eco-friendly materials we are looking to use in previous posts, but wanted to share this latest item with you.
Rao and I are literally scouring the earth seeking eco-friendly and sustainable materials to use in constructing Common Soles footwear. We’ve come across all sorts of incredible product as well as some down-right scary stuff. We’re finding materials both here in Massachusetts as well as across the ocean. Building on our Oct 22nd blog post on Making Eco-Friendly Flip-Flops here is an update on some of the materials and construction techniques we hope to be working into our line moving forward. This post is also essentially Part 3 of a series I am writing on sustainable footwear here on our blog. Enjoy!
Rice Rubber Outsole: This stuff is amazing. The outsole is the very bottom of footwear, the part that connects with the ground. Most traditional outsoles are made from rubber or PU (polyurethane). Rice Rubber is a blend of several happier ingredients. It’s a base of natural latex rubber mixed with SBR or Styrene Butadiene Rubber. SBR has been used for over 60 years in all sorts of applications such as tires, shoes, and gaskets. The blend is necessary for durability and longevity (Remember – durable footwear has a longer useful life = fewer pairs need to be manufactured). Rice husks which are a byproduct of the food industry and typically discarded after harvesting are then mixed in with the rubber. The rice husks displace a good portion of the rubber needed as well as add strength to the mixture. Similar to how gravel is added to cement to form concrete. The resulting product is not only a more eco-friendly alternative to traditional rubber soles, but it looks darn cool!
We’re working hard on designing and manufacturing our footwear to be as sustainable as possible. What is sustainable in footwear though?? Sustainable footwear considers: raw materials, product design, manufacturing processes, end-of-useful-life policy, and a whole slew of other components. So many in fact that the only way a company can truly produce a pair of sustainably made footwear is to tackle one element of the process of achieving total sustainability at a time. We at Common Soles are currently focusing our efforts on materials and manufacturing processes right now. That is not to say we aren’t doing all we can elsewhere in the sustainability value chain – this is just our area of focus at the moment.
I wrote a bit about materials on October 22nd of this year. This post is on process. The big one we can influence as a band in the US making footwear overseas is how our factory sources materials. Sourcing is a blend of art and science and is a constant battle of quality versus cost. Being who we are (a social venture) we lean toward quality whenever we have a choice. The difficulty we run into often times is that we are quite small in the world of footwear manufacturing and thus often have little say. Not an excuse though…
Rao and I have literally scowered India for all and any eco-friendly materials to integrate in our forthcoming styles of flip-flops and footwear. We met with dozens of vendors selling product that comes from all over India and Asia. The bummer part is they all smiled when we asked for eco-friendly materials and kindly shook there heads. hmmm... what to do as we were not going to give up that easily!
It turns out there are quite a few eco-friendly materials that we could easily integrate into our footwear. They just hadn't been branded that way so nobody knew it, not even the vendors selling the goods. Here's a sampling of what we found and plan to integrate into our next few styles.
Jute: Jute is a vegetable fiber that grows all over India. In fact India harvests more than 2 million tons of jute every year which puts them in the lead for tonnage harvested in the world with the next country not even at half that. Jute is better known as Burlap here in the US, so now you all know what I'm talking about. Jute is 100% biodegradable and recyclable which makes us happy! Look for jute in our straps and soles in the future.
Paper: Paper pulp is used to make card-stock. We use card-stock for the hang-tags and hangers for our flip-flops. Apparently almost all the paper pulp processed in India is post-consumer which is something they completely fail to mention! It may be that post-consumer is perceived as a negative quality wise for the paper producers, but we see it as a positive!
Coconut: You all know the coconut. India harvests more than 9 million tons of it a year putting it at third in the world. The shell of coconuts can be cut and polished to produce a variety of materials which can be used in making a flip-flop. Coconut fiber is also used in several varieties of textile such as the popular Cocona material often used in sportswear.
While we were in India we took samples of the above materials and came up with a few prototypes that used as many eco-friendly materials as possible. Here are some pictures of that prototype. It has a woven jute sole impregnated with natural rubber for durability and traction, coconut beads and hardware on the strap, and a woven jute insole on the footbed. Let us know what you think!
-Dave
Meet the Maestri. He is the guru that figures out how to assemble the wacky product ideas we come up with. Maestri does it with a cool head, steady hand, and incredible patience. It's amazing how he is able to take our garbled direction and actually produce a product that not only looks good, but fits!
Dave is on his way back to US. No one would believe that it was his first time to India. He braved the heat, spices, and all the complexities of travel in India with great ease and as any local would do. Kids just loved him where ever we went and some even thought he was Ricky Ponting the pro cricketer from Australia (although Dave isn't so sure about that after looking him up...). Here is a picture of Dave with the kids from Takkar baba colony in Kurla Mumbai.
We took autos and rickshaws where ever we could as that is the best mode of transport to the places that we wanted to go. Here are other pictures of him (and I) during his trip from checking out materials in the streets of Delhi to visiting the all girls school at Purchuru to understand the needs of the children there. We did lots of work while he was here and in the process had tons of fun too. If you talk to him you should definitely ask him about the spice challenge he volunteered for.
I am enroute to India to meet up with Rao who has been hard at work over there on new product and initiaitves for Common Soles. As a result we won't be posting any new blog entries until we return the week of Oct 11th. (I know, you'll miss us...)
The purpose of the trip is to get the next few styles and initiaitves dialed in. A women's flip-flop similar to the picture here, and a men's flop! Each flop will be sold to generate funding to support an initiaitve relevant to the workers that made the flops. Most likely these initiatives will be education related. The plan is to have these new styles available later this fall! Wish us luck and please bear with us these next two weeks as Lisa is running the show here in the US by herself until Oct 11th.
Currently, Rao is traveling India working on product and initiatives for Common Soles. I join him on Sept 30th! Here is a picture of Rao exploring some of the footwear available for sale in the streetside shops of Bangalore (Bengaluru). He's found everything from hand-made leather sandals to ornate slippers. Keeping his eyes open for any recylced materials as well as innovative construction and manufacturing techniques. Go Rao Go!
-Dave
Rao is in India right now and I plan to join him in a couple weeks to finalize some new products we are working on. A casual women's flop and our first men's flop!
The new flip-flops will feature some unique styling distinct to the region of India (Vijayawada) that the flops are bring crafted. Rao has been beating the streets in search of materials to incorporate in the flops. The common design element for these will be in the straps, and since silk is a popular fiber used in this region we’re 
experimenting with different designs. Silk is also strong, comfortable, and environmentally smart!
Check out my amateur attempt at making a video on what goes into making a flip-flop!
-Dave
Our Saahi flip-flop was designed to be a versatile, wear-anywhere flip-flop for women. The footbed is comfortable and soft, yet firm enough for all day wear. We've got some great close-up photos of the Saahi that we wanted to share with you. They say a photo is worth a thousand words - we agree!
-Dave
We are probably one of the smallest footwear organizations in existence right now. Two employees in the US, and some dedicated folks overseas. Of course we do have the help of our significant others (thank you very much!), friends, and family. Being small is good though - we are incredibly nimble and it's very easy for Rao and I to communicate with one another.
Building on my June 24th post we continue to leverage the wealth of resources that exist online. The resource I'm learning a good deal about lately is Joomla. Joomla is a free open source website building platform that we decided to use for the Common Soles website. Rao had some experience working with Joomla in the past, and free is one of my favorite words so we went for it.
We don't just make any flip-flop at Common Soles. We make good ones. Flip-flops that will hold up to the daily abuse you expect all your footwear to withstand. Harsh abuses such as walking the dog, making homemade iced-tea, and slipping on to air out the feet apres mountain biking. Yes, we realize these are not the most extreme of conditions for footwear, but they may be your reality - they certainly are ours....
