TOMS Shoes
 |
|
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2006 |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California |
|
Area served
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Worldwide |
|
Key people
|
Blake Mycoskie Alejo Nitti (Co-Founder) |
| Products | Shoes, clothing, eyewear, coffee, shirts |
| Website | toms.com |
Blake Mycoskie
(CEO / Founder)
Toms (stylized as TOMS) is a for-profit company based in Playa Del Rey, California. The company was founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, an entrepreneur from Arlington, Texas. The company designs and sells shoes based on the Argentine alpargata design as well as eyewear. When Toms sells a pair of shoes, a new pair of shoes is given to an impoverished child, and when Toms sells a pair of eyewear, part of the profit is used to save or restore the eyesight for people in developing countries. Similarly, the company launched TOMS Roasting Co. in 2014. With each purchase of TOMS Roasting Co. coffee, the company works with other organizations that they refer to as "giving partners" to provide 140 liters of safe water (a one-week supply) to a person in need. In 2015, TOMS Bag Collection was launched to help address the need for advancements in maternal health. Purchases of TOMS Bags help provide training for skilled birth attendants and distribute birth kits containing items that help a woman safely deliver her baby.
Blake Mycoskie first visited Argentina while competing in the second season of The Amazing Race with his sister in 2002. He returned there on vacation in January 2006, and noticed that the local polo players were wearing a form of shoes called alpargatas, a simple canvas slip-on shoe that he himself began to wear. Alpargatas were the model for the original line of Toms Shoes. They are made from canvas or cotton fabric with rubber soles, and are manufactured in several styles. According to Mycoskie, when he was doing some volunteer work in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, he noticed that many of the children were running through the streets barefooted, and he decided that he wanted to develop a kind of alpargata for the North American market, with the goal that for every pair sold he would provide a new pair of shoes free of charge to youth of Argentina and other developing nations. According to Mycoskie, Bill Gates encouraged him, saying that the lack of shoes was a major contributor to diseases in children.
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Wikipedia