One of the 'must dos' for me while in New York was to visit the Terra Plana store. It's the only one in North America and I love the Vivo Barefoot line so much that I had to see the store. I was also really looking forward to meeting Sabra Ellingson, the USA Operations Director, who I've had many enjoyable conversations with on the phone and via email.
My spouse and I took the subway to Manhattan and stopped at the closest station we could to the store. We asked a very nice and friendly police officer where we could find 254 Elizabeth Street because our GPS was having trouble locating it (satellites were hard for our NUVI to find because of all the tall buildings, I think). Anyway, we were 3 blocks away and we found it easily enough.
The store is absolutely beautiful and HUGE. Compared to some of the other shops in the area, the Terra Plana is enormously spacious. It is bright and beautiful and colourful. I was immediately attracted to the Vivo Barefoot section of the store (go figure). There are shelves of all the new Vivo Barefoot shoes for the Spring/Summer 2010 collection. It was heaven. :)
There's also a wall with the new Kids Vivo Barefoot shoes, Dopies, as well as any previous models that have been shipped to the store for resale.
Charese and I spent a long time talking about the new models. She was so nice and incredibly patient with my excitement. While we were there, I spoke to a man who was wearing the new Vivo Barefoot Evo running shoe because he was there with his wife picking out a pair for her. We talked a while about the minimalist movement and other minimalist shoes on the market.
I was so happy to finally meet Sabra. She had an incredibly busy schedule that day so I was grateful for the time she spent with me. She's lovely and incredibly kind and generous.
After trying on many of the new models, I picked a pair of black Kalis to buy. I'll be writing a review of them for the Living Barefoot website and will update when that comes out (in a couple of weeks or so). I wore them out of the store and can't wait to wear them more often here now that the weather is finally warming up.
Here are some pictures of the Terra Plana store.
