US Toms shoes come over to Europe along with their charity plans. Founded in Los Angeles in 2006, Tomorrow Shoes have traditionally looked at “customers who want to match their shopping with charity and help”. How can they do it? It is very simple: any time Toms sell a pair of shoes, they give one more away to needy people. At the beginning Blake Mycoskie, former star of television reality shows, founder of the brand, used to produce principally espadrilles, while actively working in Argentina: here he strove hard to help street children, to whom he gave away, from 2010 onwards, millions of pairs of shoes. In 2014, Bain Capital invested 313 million dollars; Jim Alling replaced the founder in the management board. Nevertheless, sales did not speed up as they expected and hoped. According to financial analysts, the brand was too reliant on espadrilles, which was its only product. That is why Toms decided to make and build up other products, chiefly leather ones, while carrying on with their charity activities. After giving a 5-million-dollar charitable contribution to organizations that work hard to stop armed violence in the United States (in November 2018), Alling announced they are going to support financially a few projects by “change makers” (they are the ones who want to change the world) all over Europe (here Toms achieve 20% of sales). More specifically, the brand will support some projects for homeless people, women’s empowerment and social entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom and Germany, to begin with, and subsequently in other European countries.
You buy one, and we give one away: Toms fair footwear looks (more and more) at leather while coming over to Europe
