I have worked in footwear since I was sixteen, so barefoot shoes were never exactly new to me.
I knew about them. I had seen them. I understood the basic idea.
But did I wear them?
No.
Being completely honest, I do not think I really wanted to. For a long time, I had barefoot shoes filed away in my head as one of those things that made sense in theory, but not necessarily on my own feet. I did not always love the look of them, and I definitely did not properly understand what they could do, or why people got so passionate about them.
That has changed rather a lot.
These days, I find traditional footwear harder to wear than barefoot shoes, which is not something I ever expected to say. This is only my story, though. Everyone’s feet, body and experience will be different, and I think that is worth saying right at the start.
Mine started, oddly enough, with my knee
About eighteen months ago, my partner and I were out for a local walk on a lovely sunny evening. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those normal walks you do without thinking too much about it.
Then, halfway through, my knee suddenly locked.
I dropped to the floor in absolute agony. It made such a horrible sound that I genuinely thought I had done something really serious. For about ten minutes I could not move. I was sitting there in the middle of a field, nowhere near the car, with no one else around, wondering how on earth I was going to get home.
Eventually, after ten or fifteen minutes, the pain eased enough for me to stand up and get back. Weirdly, finishing the walk seemed to loosen it off a bit, so I thought maybe it was one of those strange things that happens and then disappears.
It was not.
When I got home, I bent down to say hello to Summer, my cat, and pop. There it went again.
This time I could not weight bear. I could not move properly. The pain was awful, so off to hospital I went. That part could probably be a whole separate story, to be honest.
The next day, after being assessed, I was sent home without any real answers. I had crutches, a swollen knee and the advice to come back if it got worse again.
Not exactly comforting. 🙃
Finding out I was hypermobile
I am very lucky that we have an amazing physiotherapist, Jo, literally next door to our office. I went to see her and we talked through a few possibilities, including a torn meniscus or tendon injury. That was also when I found out I am hypermobile, which basically means my joints have more elasticity than usual and can move beyond the typical range.
It explained a lot.
I carried on with physio, working on building strength around my knee, but the pain was pretty constant. It started to affect ordinary things. Walking. Stairs. Driving. Even sitting in certain positions.
This is the bit I do not think I expected. An injury like that does not just affect the painful part of your body. It starts to chip away at your normal life.
I went from enjoying walks to struggling to drive my manual car. Eventually, the pain from driving became bad enough that I had to sell my Honda Civic Type R.
That car meant a lot to me. I had saved and saved for it in my twenties, and I had owned it for fifteen years. It might sound silly if you are not a car person, but having to sell it because of my knee was genuinely gutting.
The longest eight months ever
After around eight months, and they were the longest eight months ever, I decided I needed further investigation and had an MRI scan.
The scan showed that, mechanically, my knee was intact. Nothing major was torn, which was a relief, but it also left me with a different kind of answer. Because of my hypermobility, and the weakness in the muscles around my knee, I was hyperextending more often than I realised. Those tiny movements, the little moments of instability, were a big part of what kept setting everything off.
Jo had warned me before that, as we get older, our muscles need more work.
I laughed at her at the time.
She was right, annoyingly. 🙄
Maybe I just did not want to admit I was heading towards forty.
Everything seemed to be connected
Physio continued, and Jo also roped me into a clinical Pilates class every week to help with core strength. I had not really appreciated until then how connected the whole body is. I injured my knee, then started overcompensating, then my other knee, hips and back began to join the party. My walking changed. My muscles tightened. Everything seemed to be having an argument with everything else.
At one point I remember thinking, brilliant, I am officially falling apart.
Sports massages helped. Pilates helped. Physio helped. Slowly, I started to understand that this was not going to be fixed by one magic thing. It was going to be a mixture of strength, movement, awareness and patience.
Then Oak & Hyde entered the story
Around this time, myself and Rob had bought Oak & Hyde, and we were talking with our team in Portugal about future plans for the brand.
Barefoot shoes kept coming up.
Jo had worn barefoot footwear for years. I do not think I have ever seen her wear anything else. I had also started reading more about barefoot shoes and natural movement, and for the first time I was not just looking at them as a footwear industry person. I was looking at them as someone whose own body suddenly felt a bit unreliable.
Then our first barefoot samples arrived.
Rather conveniently, the women’s samples were in my size.
Obviously, they needed testing. 😊
The first pair I really started wearing
The first pair I really started wearing was our Willow Chelsea boot. What appealed to me straight away was that it did not look like the barefoot shoes I had always imagined. It looked like a proper Chelsea boot. A normal boot. A nice boot, actually. Just with more room, more flexibility and a different way of letting your foot move.
I am not going to pretend it was instant.
It took time for me to transition, especially with my knee being as it was. There were moments where it felt strange. There were days where I was very aware of my feet and muscles working in a way they had not been asked to for years.
But gradually, I noticed changes.
I felt more stable. My balance improved. My toes felt like they had space to move. My knee felt steadier. The pain did not vanish overnight, and I would never say barefoot shoes magically cured anything, because they did not. I was still doing physio. I was still doing Pilates. I was still putting in the work.
Barefoot shoes became a big part of the puzzle for me.
What changed over time
Over time, I stopped reaching for my traditional shoes. Then one day I realised I was wearing barefoot footwear all the time. My knee pain has almost completely gone and my normal daily activities have resumed. I don’t think twice about any activity now, whereas in the early stages I had to carefully think about what activities I was doing as I didn’t want to aggravate my knee further.
Now, if I put traditional shoes on, they feel odd. I feel higher up, have less ground feel, I am less steady, and my toes feel like they have nowhere to go. Ironically, they also cause my knee to become agitated, probably due to the instability and additional micro movements I have to make to counter the lack of balance in traditional shoes. It is funny, because I spent years assuming that more cushioning automatically meant more comfort. For me, I do not think that was true. I think I had become used to shoes doing too much of the work, and my feet and muscles had got a bit lazy because of it.
That is my experience, anyway.
The biggest surprise
The biggest surprise has been how comfortable barefoot shoes can be when they are designed well. Not thin and awkward. Not clinical-looking. Not something you have to wear because it is “good for you” but secretly hate.
That is the bit that has really shaped how I think about Oak & Hyde.
Rob and I both care about barefoot footwear because we have both had personal experiences with it. We are not interested in making shoes that we would not wear ourselves. We want to make leather boots, shoes, trainers and sandals that look good, feel good and allow natural movement without losing the quality and style we love.
Premium leather still matters to us. Craftsmanship still matters. Keeping our manufacturing in Portugal and Spain matters too.
But now, so does giving feet room to behave like feet.
If you are barefoot curious
If you are barefoot curious, I would say it is worth exploring, but go slowly. It is not always a quick switch, and it is not the right fit for everyone. For some people, the transition may take weeks. For me, it took much longer, especially because I was dealing with an injury at the same time.
Listen to your body. Do not rush it. Build strength where you need to.
Be patient.
I fully transitioned around six months ago and I have not looked back since.
Emma
