Fast getaway
With the launch of a hands-free children’s footwear line, Kizik’s signature collapsible heel has simplified the act of putting on shoes for all ages and abilities.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that in a household with children, one can be certain to find the following: dried toothpaste in a bathroom sink; a soft, two-month-old apple in the bottom of a backpack; and many, many crushed-heeled sneakers thanks to hurried kids too impatient to fit their whole foot into the shoe.
A new line of hands-free shoes for kids might change that last one. Helped by the completion of a $20 million Series B funding (led by the Newcastle Network), a Utah-based company has just launched Kizik Kids, which follows the success of an adult version of the shoes that can be stepped into with no kneeling, tugging or lace tying.
Since first launching with just two men-only styles in 2017, Kizik has since vastly expanded its offerings to include a range of styles for men and women. The brand has grown quickly (Forbes reported a tenfold year-over-year sales increase in 2021), while garnering praise from not only busy adults who enjoy a speedy exit from the house but from groups like pregnant women and people with disabilities who find the act of putting on a traditional shoe to be difficult or even impossible. Now children as young as four can enjoy the same ease and autonomy.
The springback heel
The new kids line employs the HandsFree Labs (Kizik’s parent company) shoe-entry technology already seen in the original adult shoes, which Kizik CEO Monty Deere describes as “patented tech that allows the wearer to simply step into the shoe, and the spring-back heel pops into place and stays there”.
A shoe that does not require manual dexterity seems a natural fit for children, which begs the question: why wasn’t this line launched first? “Offering kids’ shoes was always the plan,” Mr Deere tells World Footwear. “We started with adult styles because we wanted the largest demographic of consumers to be the first to experience the original hands-free shoe. We knew that once they did, they’d champion the cause for the kids in their lives, and that’s exactly what happened.”
The new children’s shoes come in more vibrant colour combinations, and the younger kids’ sizes also have stretch laces so the top of the shoe flexes on step-in and the laces do not come untied. The response so far has been strong, with some styles selling out within days. Because kids can put these shoes on all by themselves, Mr Deere says, “this launch satisfied a lot of demand. Parents know the struggle of trying to get shoes onto their kid’s feet so they can get out the door.”
That springback heel is the heart of the Kizik design; it allows the shoes to bend momentarily as the foot presses in, then almost instantly re-assume their original shape once they are on. The concept aims to remove all the effort from putting on a shoe; wearers should no longer have to squat to loosen laces or tug the heel tab and manually manipulate the heel counter around the back of the foot.
Mr Deere tells World Footwear the company has more than 150 patents and patents pending on its footwear technologies with “with many different shoe-entry modalities” developed by in-house engineers under the direction of Kizik Founder Mike Pratt. Currently, three of those designs are used.
The first is the brand’s original technology, which Mr Deere says is “created with a titanium/nickel wire inside of a plastic band that attaches to the sole of the shoe in sort of a rainbow shape. The titanium is a thin, low-profile material that flexes like a car antenna as we build the heel of the shoe around it, and that tension plus the high rebound in the titanium makes it so that it’s always trying to pop back up.” That approach is currently used in two styles, the canvas and suede Prague and the leather Vegas, which from the outside look relatively indistinguishable from other stylish trainers available on the market today.
The second, as seen on the Athens, highlights the brand’s signature feature by putting the technology on the outside of the shoe. “Our most visibly distinguishable tech is the external heel cage,” Mr Deere says. “It’s a unique, compressible lattice structure that has become a Kizik icon.”
The third design in use is an internal cage on two other styles, which is covered by the upper and not visible. “While it looks similar to the external cage on the Athens, it has more geometry to it with more ribs of plastic making up the lattice structure, and its response on the bounce-back is softer,” according to Mr Deere.
A shoe for everyone
On the company’s website there is an interview with a woman effusing about how much she loves her hands-free shoes. “I have a ton of shoes in my closet,” she says, “I don’t wear any of them anymore because Kiziks are so easy to put on and are so comfortable.” Like her, many of the brand’s customers are drawn to the time-saving convenience of the shoes. (This reflects Mr Deere’s philosophy: “It’s about the joy — the satisfying convenience — that we don’t have to stop what we’re doing to untie our shoes, bend over, and put them on again.”)
But for others, the shoes truly can be transformative. Mr Deere says customers have told him they have been unable to put their own shoes on for years. His brand “solves a fundamental life challenge in a very simple way and that resonates with everyone, but it’s actually life-changing for some”.
From an adaptive perspective, “any health challenge or condition or situation that makes it hard to bend down or hard to use your hands, whether that’s pregnancy, aging, or a disability” can benefit from the handsfree approach, he says.
If the name Kizik is new to you, the technology probably is not. Three years ago, Handsfree Labs announced a strategic investment from, and an intellectual property licensing partnership with, Nike. At the time, Nike described the megabrand’s FlyEase platform as “providing greater access to sport for all athletes” and said it believed HandsFree’s technology could “broaden and enhance this effort by removing barriers to play and making sport easier for more people”. FlyEase was developed with insights from the disability community, according to Nike, and includes several variations including the Glide FlyEase (worn by US Team members in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics) and a high top Air Jordan 1 High FlyEase.
Though the two brands are not necessarily marketed to the same groups — FlyEase tends to emphasise its accessibility for athletes with mobility challenges while Kizik highlights the shoe’s day-to-day convenience as much as its accessibility — the limited availability of some of Nike’s hands-free models can be credited with introducing new consumers to the lesser-known brand. For example, when the Go FlyEase sold out swiftly after its release only to reappear on the resale market for grossly-inflated prices, numerous publications covering the shortage talked about Kiziks as an alternative.
In fact, about a year ago, Chris Chase, cofounder of independent review site WearTesters.com, ran a video review about Kiziks, acknowledging that the brand was not typical of the bigger names they normally cover (“Something very different for today's video as this one isn't for ‘sneakerheads’,” he said), but he felt it was important to introduce the shoes to what is often a brand-obsessed consumer set.
Focusing on the Kizik Athens, he began his review by referencing an earlier video about the Nike Glide FlyEase. While he had spoken highly of the Glide in a general sense, Mr Chase recalled, he had held one lingering concern: The Glide’s recycled foam insole “had no sock liner on it so it was just the exposed foam,” which caused his socks to stick and his toes to have to inch his whole foot forward. “It defeats the purpose of that being such an easy access type of shoe,” he said, “if I’m struggling trying to get into this thing.”
To Mr Chase, what made Kizik’s shoe truly hands-free was not only the collapsible heel but the Athens’ insole which he praised for being high-quality and having “a nice micro-fibery feel”, allowing his foot to glide in. “This is some comfort right here. We don't even get this with name-brand, expensive shoes.” (He went on to discuss the prevalence of big brands cutting corners for profit margin and the need for consumers to demand better from these larger companies.)
The WearTesters review also included insights from Ryan Jans, a writer for the site who has cerebral palsy. When asked to compare FlyEase models with the Athens, Mr Jans said it depends on the model. “The Flyease Jordan One with its zipper and strap system is a bit harder and takes more time for me to get on and off when compared to the Athens,” he said, “whereas the Go FlyEase, using the pop out heel midsole design, is slightly easier and faster than the Athens to get on and off.” Either way, he added, “I don't have a hard time getting in and out of the Athens.”
At the close of the review, Mr Chase came back to the idea that for hands-free technology to make the life-changing impact it is capable of, the shoes must be consistently in stock and purchasable by the average consumer. “Everybody is too busy paying for [big brands] that they won’t go after something like [the Kizik Athens],” he said, “which is very readily available.”
What’s next for Kizik
The company is currently working on boots and launched a new hands-free shoe in early November called the Roamer on which the external heel tech — made with a proprietary foam — extends directly from the sole. The way the shoe’s design accentuates the springback heel as an aesthetic feature, rather camouflaging it, may hint at the brand’s growing popularity.
Thus far, Kizik has only been available online via the brand’s website, but that is set to change. In addition to launching Kizik Kids, part of the $20 million in funding will go toward opening the brand’s first retail store in 2023 in Salt Lake City, Utah. And the company has plans to keep innovating — and protecting its innovations — in this space.
With the HandsFree Labs’ portfolio of granted patents and patents-pending, the company has “many ways to make easy-on hands-free shoes,” according to Mr Deere. “We will continue to develop and commercialise, and also protect and enforce, new footwear technologies.”
The external heel cage flexes during step in, then pops back into place.
Credit: Kizik
