THE GOBI
No Vivo shoe has been on a design journey with more thought and fine-tuning than the most simple of VIVOBAREFOOT products, the Gobi.
Way back in 1957, Nat Clark observed the unique military footwear favoured by the Gurkha in Burma. A lightweight suede alternative to the heavy standard issue, these boots let your feet breath and breath like no other at the time. He adapted it for Clarks, cut the patterns out of newspaper in his tent in candle light and sent them back to his brother in Somerset to make an iconic Desert Boot – now a shoe archetype
And when Nat’s great nephew, Vivo design director Asher Clark, sat down to the drawing board, he decided to take the lightweight credentials of one of the most famous lace-up icons one step further and even closer to earth.
Inspired by the words of Bruce Lee “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own” and with a sense of humbled homage to “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery”, the Gobi was born and continues to develop as a barefoot icon of the future.
The Gobi is a desert boot with deep ancestral roots, following simple and functional design principles. But this time it’s foot shaped with a super-thin sole that feels like you’re not wearing a desert boot – or any boot at all for that matter.
Keep it simple, keep it barefoot.
