House Shoes for the Great Outdoors (EXCLUSIVE)
The brief for Purple Mountain Observatory’s first-ever shoe sounded straightforward: an all-terrain slip-on equally rugged and refined. But in practice, creating an uncomplicated trail clog proved to be a most complicated task.
“The design evolved around the idea of stripping things back to their purest form. A single material with no unnecessary seams or stitches,” Joe Barrowclift and Matt Braun, two-thirds of the team behind Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO), tell me over email. “The hardest part was balancing functionality with simplicity.”
Braun founded PMO in 2021 as a technical apparel brand, finding a niche by artfully fine-tuning the utilitarian.
Durable water-resistant finishes and materials fused through ultrasonic welding are only half the story.
The PMO difference is tasteful ombre hues spilling across lightweight shell jackets and complex anatomical darts turning classic trail trousers into statement slacks, smart and striking touches that make PMO clothing more than just gear for the outdoors. It's all obviously appealing enough that it didn't take long for customers to come calling.
“The brand has grown faster than we expected,” admit Barrowclift and Braun. “Technical apparel [was] always our main focus, the outdoors, but over time subcultures have gravitated towards the brand, in music, art, and more. That crossover has been exciting because it wasn’t forced.”
An in-house sneaker “has always been part of the plan,” say the duo. But the idealized design was just out of reach. To make it happen, Barrowclift and Braun needed a seasoned guide to navigate the complex world of high-spec footwear.
So, they travelled to the Milanese headquarters of vaunted shoe-sole specialists Vibram. It wasn't just Vibram’s ubiquitous soles on their mind, but the Italian company's vast range of cutting-edge material developments. Specifically, PMO was there to test StratX, a sheet-printed hybrid rubber compound initially used for orthopedic insoles that has since become used for just about everything.
PMO’s laceless Calyx sneaker is not your average trek shoe. The Calyx is, instead, a pair of slippers. However, these aren’t room shoes but slippers for the great outdoors.
For instance, its seamless waterproof upper is sculpted from a single sheet of Vibram StratX. “By removing stitching and layering, you remove weak points,” say Barrowclift and Braun.
Underfoot, a thick lugged Vibram Grivola outsole is fitted with Vibram’s high-performance Megagrip compound, making this sleek shape impressively sturdy. It’s Vibram all the way down.
”The idea was to create something you could slide into at the campsite without any complication. It reflects ease, but still carries the technical backbone we’re known for,” say Barrowclift and Braun. “Slip-ons are intuitive, you don’t need to think about them.”
The duo is currently on one such camping trip when we catch up. Before the Calyx’s August 22 release, the team tested out the shoe in the Great British countryside during a few days of foraging and bushcraft. It’s “perfect proof of concept,” they say.
Also perfect proof of concept? Alex Coates, the head-to-toe tattooed outdoorsman who stars in the PMO shoe’s campaign.
A tattoo artist and keen hiker, Coates doesn’t fit into any outdated outdoorsman archetype, just like PMO’s stylish breed of outdoor gear doesn’t fall in line with traditional technical gear.
“On his walks, he collects ram skulls,” say Barrowcraft and Braun. “He’s an embodiment of what Purple Mountain Observatory is about.”
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