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If the shoe fits better, it might be etnies
November 18th, 2009, 6:00 am · 20 Comments · posted by Theresa Walker, Editor
Too bad my son isn’t a skater, or 2 years old.
I spent Tuesday morning with about 30 other mom bloggers (and one dad blogger) taking a tour of the Sole Technology Institute in Lake Forest, the parent company where etnies sneakers are designed and developed. And I have to say, the shoes are cool. Especially the ones for little kids.
OK, you don’t have to be a skater to wear etnies. But my son already has a pair of tennis shoes for every day of the week. So my interest in the tour was strictly to provide information to you moms out there who might find etnies a good fit for your child’s growing feet.
Etnies gave the bloggers there a promotional code to share with our readers, so you can get $10 off for every $40 you spend online, along with free shipping. Plus, they made it possible for The Mom Blog to hold a contest for a $100 gift card.
The focus of the tour was on the etnies Grow With Me fit system, launched in 2007 to develop sturdy and stylish shoes designed to fit better — and longer — on a growing child’s feet. It’s no surprise that the impetus for creating an improved child’s sneaker came from company employees with kids.
We met company founder Pierre Andre Senizergues, a former professional skater who started Sole Technology. He always wanted to create an affordable shoe for skateboarders that would last longer than a day. He says he used to resort to duct tape to hold his shoes together.
Senizergues was a world champion back in his prime, but was just as proud to tell us that his 14-month-old son Mateo just started walking about a week ago. And, he couldn’t help adding, “He started skateboarding, too, a few days ago.” That got a laugh.
We also heard from members of the Sole Technology team — all of them skaters comfortably dressed in jeans, t-shirts and sneakers, and several of them dads, too. They showed us the research that goes into creating an etnies shoe.
Did
you know, for example, that skaters experience an impact 17 times their body weight when they are out there flying and flipping and landing? Good golly Ollie! Compare that to an impact of three times your body weight for runners and six times your body weight for basketball players. Sole Technology’s assistant lab manager, Scotty Cox, told us the impact from skateboarding is equivalent to when a parachutist lands.
But about the Grow With Me fit system. The shoes run up to size 10. When developing the shoes, the company brought in the young children of employees and friends to measure such things as the width of their heel pocket and the length of their arches.
They built the shoes on an extra wide “last” — a technical term for the form on which a shoe is built so you get the inside shape — because that conforms better to the wider, squarer shape of kids’ feet on up to about age 5. The wider platform gives young walkers better balance, Senizergues said.
The molded footbed is designed so that their little heels fill the cup and are kept inside the shoe. The outsole is more pliable to give more flexibility. (That’s Marcie Taylor of Huntington Beach, who writes Suburban Mama, testing out a shoe’s flexibility in this photo. Scotty Cox, with his arm in a sling, is at the left in the photo.)
But this is maybe the best feature: The insert in the toddler shoes can be removed as the feet grow, extending the use of the shoes for an estimated two months or so longer.
Brad Levy, owner of Shoe Box at Fashion Island, carries the etnies Grow With Me shoes, which run about $25 for the infant shoes, $30 for the toddler shoes and about $40 for kids shoes. He called the response to Grow With Me “awesome.”
“Thirty dollars for an all-leather toddler shoe with features like that, there’s nothing like it,” he said. Levy’s 10-year-old daughter isn’t a skater but she wears etnies for the fashionable look.
So are you fired up to put some etnies on your kids’ feet? If so, go to etnies.com and use the promotional code “ETNIES FAMILY” to get the discount and the free shipping we mentioned earlier. You can also get a free etnies tote bag (like the one Marcie is holding in the photo above) if you buy a pair of etnies shoes at any of the following retailers that carry etnies:
- In Orange County, Newport Shoe Bootery (Shoe Box at Fashion Island), 41041 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach
- In Los Angeles County, Urban Feet, 329 W. 6th St., San Pedro
- In San Bernardino County, Powder & Sun, 16210 Bear Valley Road, Victorville
And here’s an extra bonus from The Mom Blog, courtesy of etnies: They gave each of the bloggers on the tour a $100 gift card good for their company store. The Register’s policy doesn’t allow us reporter/editor types to accept such personal gifts, but we can give it to you!
Just tell us here on the blog a fun shoe story about yourself or about your kids. And you have to live in Orange County in order to win, and be able to travel to the company store in Lake Forest to spend that $100.
We’ll pick a winner on Friday.
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I hadn’t realized how fast my daughter was growing out of her shoes until a few weeks ago when I picked her up from school and she asked me if I had noticed anything about her shoes. She was wearing black sneakers, which she usually wears, so I didn’t think much about it until I gave them a better look and realized they were MY sneakers! She couldn’t find hers that morning, so she had snagged mine instead. I didn’t really mind her borrowing them as much as I minded the realization that at almost 8 (two weeks!), she could borrow my sneaks now. I don’t know how other people measure how fast their kids are growing up, but in our house, it’s in shoes.
(And as mentioned on a post earlier this week, my daughter LOVES “skater” shoes. So the etnies coupon would be much appreciated if I win it.)
My son just started getting into skating…. This would totally blow his mind for Christmas….
All he wants now are skater shoes. He looks at me like as if I know all there is to know about skating… um NO!
All I know is that they’re black… and the socks aren’t suppose to show… Go figure!
My husband is a skateboarder who goes through shoes like crazy, not because he’s outgrown them, but because he tears them up skateboarding. He could really use a new pair of etnies for Christmas.
P.S. My husband has ten times the number of shoes that I have, maybe I should use the gift card on myself!
My daughter is 2 and is outgrowing her shoes in a matter of weeks. The latest pair lasted just 3 weeks before she was complaining, “They’re too tight!” Plus she never keeps them on her feet while at home or in the car. She loves taking one off and leaving the other one on while in the car. And she’s picky about her shoes. Heaven forbid we call her sandals shoes: “No Daddy, they’re sandals. Not shoes!”
As for a funny story about me and shoes, while on a trip to London, I returned with four pairs of shoes and a pair of sandals. No “Mind the Gap” T-shirts, post cards or other novelty souvenirs for me. It was all about the shoes.
Cheers to etnies! I love that they are thinking about our little skaters. The Grow With Me system is a most excellent idea! My boys have been wearing another famous skateboarder shoe that has cost me a bundle and wears out way to early. I think it’s time to give etnies a try.
And I have to tell you that I learned firsthand about the skaters experiencing an impact 17 times their body weight. Yep, old Skate Bunny had to retire her board after hitting the concrete way too many times - couldn’t take the pain. But, I still can wear the shoes!
I like wareing Danskin Jass shoes and the well crafted shoes at Soul Techonology. They are so supportive and affordable.
Hi
This is a great article about shoes. With the market these days and the shoe makeer competition, it is good to know that there is a company out there that cares about kids feet.
I have three girls and my middle girl is into shoes and skateboarding. She goes through shoes quickly either they get worn out or her feet gets bigger. I think her feet grows bigger everyday.
My 3 year old daughter loves, loves, loves shoes….she even knows to “match” them to her outfit (I’m in big trouble). But what cracks me up most about her is when she tells me she wants to grow big so she can wear MY shoes! Ahhh, like mother like daughter! We are just down the street from their store in LF!
I have to say I love Etnies but my son has been growing out of his shoes and clothes so quickly that I can’t keep up money-wise so i have had to buy Payless or Old Navy. He is only 2 years old, going on 3 and already wearing an 11Toddler. His clothes, I thought I was buying bigger to last thru winter and went with 5T and fit him just right. OMG, I’m a sad mommy, he is growing so fast. A few pairs of Etnies tennis shoes would last longer and help our pockets. Thank you.
I bought my 2 1/2 year old a pair of Etnies a while back and the only thing she talks about is the “E” on the side. She is a petite little girl, but you wouldn’t know it by her big personality.
You know I’m in trouble when she is asking for “E” shoes from Santa this year. She proceeded to tell me that the shoes she has now are dirty and that she needs a new pair of pink “E” shoes. Her exact words were “I need some pink E shoes, can we go to the mall and buy them?” She is 2 1/2 going on 10.
Hi,
My daughter is 2 years old and is obsessed with shoes and purses. Every night before she goes to sleep she puts on her favorite pair of shoes and than puts all her stuffed animals and dollies in her shoes as well.. some of the dollies wear her boots and the other animals wear her balarina slippers.. she freaks if I try to take them off of her before she falls asleep, so once she is asleep I have to take all of the shoes off her and the rest of the gang… = ) She is absolutely adorable and this goes on every night… lol gotta love her
Cynthia
My baby is almost two years old and is currently in love with boots. His brown western boots are his favorite and he’d wear them to bed if he could.
My son is almost 2 and has been fascinated by shoes since he was 6 months old. He wants every shoe he sees and tries to wear his dads shoes around the house- he winds up looking like a mini-Charlie Chaplin. The other day, he took off his favorite sandals in the car while we were driving and started smelling his feet. I guess he was not to pleased with his foot odor because he yelled “Stinky! Stinky! Mamma, stinky feet! Stinky shoes! No Shoes!” and the shoes promptly went flying out the window of our truck, never to be seen again. Needless to say, we really need some new shoes.
Never to be seen again? Does that mean that you are promoting littering to your little one?
Those at etnies would not be happy to hear that…
I have a 5 and a 4 year old girls. Dad sometimes mix up the shoes. One day I picked the little one up and she had one shoe that was her sister’s. As she was running towards me her foot came off of one. Her teacher said this happened all day but it doesn’t bother her much. Now she likes wearing mismatched shoes.
I took my 12 year old son ro his favorite skateboarding shop to go shoe shopping last weekend. While he was looking at shoes, the sales person said to him, “Hey, you skated in the game of SKATE here last week, didn’t you.” I felt proud, thinking, WOW, Scott really is a good skater! (He came in 3rd) My son confirmed, yes he had skated, to which the salesperson replied….”I recognized you from your shoes, I could not believe how they were held together by duct tape!” I never knew that you could wear out the top of your shoes (within a month) until my son started skateboarding.
My 2 year old loves shoes. She gets mostly hand-me-downs from her cousin, but she loves them anyway. Even from the time she was 6 months old her face would light up at a pair of shoes in the store. She was only slightly amused by the toys. She eyed the toys and we moved on. But shoes always make her smile and squeel with joy. At kids parties when all the kids take their shoes off, she “collects” them. She hordes them into a pile until we tell her she must return them. Me thinks shem may be part Leprachaun!
Ever since my daughter started crawling, she has the fascination for shoes. Now that she’s 20 months old, she takes and puts on any shoes she sees… even at the kids play area. Parents of the other children have to keep saying, “no” to her!
My little girl loves shoes. I guess she takes after her mom. I have found some really great kids footwear from here.
We announced on Friday that Julie Scott won the etnies shopping spree. Congratulations to Julie and thanks to all who shared their shoe stories and comments.