walk&rest (2014)
Partner: Tenderate Company
www.walknrest.com

walk&rest walk the road, rest your mind 

2014.09.20 | JOH & Company

There’s always been a dilemma that most women might face: should we give up style for the sake of comfort, or will we stick to style and put up with aching feet? Walk & Rest offers a fresh solution for it.

Tell us about Walk & Rest, the brand.

Walk & Rest is a shoes brand launched in collaboration with JOH and Tenderate Corp., a company develops materials. In the end of August 2014, we released our first line up, Mellow Shoes, which is flat shoes for women.

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The softness, comfortability and durability of Mellow Shoes are all products of novel material invented after a lengthy research.

How did you become associated with Tenderate?

One day, we’ve got an e-mail in JOH official account: It was from Tenderate Corp. saying they would like to launch a shoes brand. Rather than simply contacting us and asking about it, they showed their passion and earnestness in their constant e-mails. That’s how we began to pay attention to them. Tenderate Corp turned out to be a local company developing materials for shoes and their technical skill was second to none.

What did Tenderate Corp. expect from the collaboration with JOH?

They wanted to have their original brand. Tenderate has long wished to make their own shoes, not as a supplier of the material. They had tried to launch their shoes before, not so successfully, and that was why they felt the necessity for a proper brand. That led them to seek for a specialist in branding. Then they came across with a copy of Magazine B issue exploring Havaianas, a shoe brand. JOH’s deep interest to a single shoe brand much impressed people in Tenderate Corp., therefore they suggested a collaborated brand. Magazine B, so to speak, was a bridge built between JOH and Tenderate Corp.

How are the roles assigned to each company?

Tenderate Corp. is responsible for the production and quality check while JOH deals with every creative aspect such as developing, designing and marketing of the products. That made us possible to maintain a coherent concept throughout the process from the branding of our project to the designing of shoes and package, as well as the launching plan. We spent one and a half year to complete the process. Tenderate’s originality of material and know-how had convinced JOH in the early stages of the project, which resulted in OH’s investment decision. We hit it off really well since we had a common goal, that is, to influence the market with a fascinating new brand.

We walk through our lives.
Shoes are what accompany with us during this livelong journey.

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Customers can choose between pointy toes or round toes options according to the shapes of one’s toes or width of one’s feet, or to one’s preference.

What’s the implication of the name, Walk & Rest?

Literally, it means ‘taking a rest while walking.’ A person walks for 100 thousand kilometers in one’s life. It’s a long way which equals two and a half laps around the glove. We walk our lives, and shoes are what accompany us during this livelong journey. As we had realized that we are deeply depending on our shoe, we wondered what the essential role of shoes would be. And our answer was that they helps us to walk comfortably in our daily lives. We tried to embody our answer in the paradoxical expression of ‘Walk & Rest’.

Tell us about how you got to the concrete concept of the product.

We started from looking at our daily lives. After taking our time to contemplate on the shoes we really needed, we got the clearer image of what we should make. Designers and editors in JOH work a lot outside office and sometimes they have to participate in formal meetings during in-site fieldwork. That has made our staffs wear comfortable shoes until they change into formal shoes for the meeting. It was such a hassle, thus we began to feel a need for shoes that look formal but still make our feet relaxed. Consequently, the definition of shoes we need to make was the one combines the formalities of dress shoes and the comfort of casual shoes.

People nowadays love to wear sport shoes even when they are dressed up. It might mean there are increasing need of combining formality and comfort. In fact, seeking for practicality seems cooler enough. There are occasions that don’t welcome casual snickers even if I wear them a lot personally. Not only the employees of JOH, but also those who frequently work outside the office or travel for business, or who stay on their feet during work hours—curators, flight attendants, waiters in restaurants, for instance—may have the same needs for these ‘balanced shoes.’

The definition of shoes we need to make was the one combines the formalities of dress shoes and the comfort of casual shoes.

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Tenderate, the material used for Mellow Shoes, has various choices of color range from formal-looking solid black which perfectly match with every kind of wardrobe to deep navy with orange outsole that spices up your fashion.

What was the one thing you keep in mind when designing the shoes?

A neutral design for both formal and casual looks. A minimal design which is the closest thing to the ‘archetype’ of shoes. This was the top priority we had in mind during the designing process. It may sound weird enough, but we didn’t put much stress on design. On the contrary, we want the design elements step back a while so that they don’t stand out.

The flat shoes line you’ve launched is called Mellow Shoes.

Our project members had tried them on during the developing process, and one of our members had said “They totally feel like marshmallows!” Such a fitting comparison for the lightweight and softness, we had thought. From then on, we used to call our shoes ‘mellow shoes’ as a shortened name for marshmallow. By the way, the word mellow sometimes means ‘rich in color’ in addition to being ‘pleasantly soft.’ That’s why we chose the word as the perfect name for our flat shoes in multiple choices of color.

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Walk & Rest uses two different materials. An elastic material is used in outsoles for effective shock absorption while a skin-like soft material is used in the upper part to make them highly wearable.

What makes Mellow Shoes comfortable?

An odd Mellow Shoe weighs 70g–compared it to a lightweight snicker (350g) or a rubber shoe (140g). Thanks to the exceptional lightness of Mellow Shoes, your footsteps would still be light enough no matter how long you walked for. In fact, Mellow Shoes uses two different materials. An elastic material, which is frequently used in making sport shoes, is used in Mellow Shoes’ outsoles for effective shock absorption while a skin-like soft material is used in the upper part to make them highly wearable. Tenderate Corp’s advanced technic made it possible to blend two materials in a single body mold instead of gluing them together so that they are not easily distorted.

What’s the responses from customers like?

The customers’ first reaction to our shoes is about the color choices and lightness of the collection. After trying them on, they would say that the shoes are more comfortable than they expected. Many of our customers wonder about the origin of the brand and are surprised when they get to know it is a local brand, since the visual display in the store and the design of the shoes give them a unique impression. Our store is located in Hannam-dong and it is one of the most popular residential areas for foreigners in Seoul. Interestingly, our shoes look as if they had been designed from abroad even in the eyes of the customers with overseas experiences. The other interesting tendency about our customers is that they tend to revisit the store; sometimes they wish to purchase our shoes for gifts, or accompany a friend. Besides, many of our on-line customers tend to purchase multiple pairs of shoes. Our shoes get positive responses from customers in their twenties and thirties with keen sense of fashion.

What was your intention embodied in the preview photographs for the launch of the Mellow Shoes?

We wanted to show how the shoes look on the surfaces of our daily lives such as on a stone, a staircase, soil, or on a paved road. Conventional commercial pictures for women’s shoes would show a model in her unrealistically nice figure standing unrealistically clean and smooth surface in unrealistic outfit. Real world is not like that—we happen to pass by a construction site, or come across with a rough, unpaved road. Sometimes we get rained or snowed on unexpectedly. One of the most attractive features of Mellow Shoes is that they don’t get spoiled in these unexpected situations of daily lives. Another feature is that our shoes go well with everything including jeans, formal trousers, skirts, etc. Our intention was to embody these features in the photographs.

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Mellow Shoes go well with everything. Comfortable Tenderate materials made them wearable in almost anywhere, in any occasions.

Tell us about your plan for the line-up of your shoes collection.

We’ll focus on the color variation while the design itself maintains the archetype. Since the advantage of using Tenderate material is that our shoes can come in a vast variety of colors, we’re going to present new color models in every two months. Besides, we’re planning for the launch of Mellow Mary Jane for kids, which has strap shoes for both moms and children. Customers with children are already expressing interests to our glue-free and PVC-free shoes that won’t affect the sensitive skins of their children. As some of our customers want heel options, we’re planning to release wedge heels and slippers. We’re also preparing for the more varied size options considering overseas markets.

Any future plans?

We’ve been thinking about entering overseas market even before the launch of the brand. We’re going to focus on the flagships for international distribution by the start of next year. The encouraging part is that buyers at home and abroad are already very receptive for our products, despite the fact the full-scale marketing hasn’t even started. Shoes are just one of the categories that wait for novel materials from Tenderate. For us, it seems that the company has every potential to grow into a specialist for material, like Gore-tex or Vibram. Walk & Rest is only a starting point of our continued branding project of Tenderate materials.

walk&rest brand film from walk&rest on Vimeo.