How NORTHFINDER Shoes Are Made

The idea of our own footwear had been present at NORTHFINDER for years. The first samples were made more than ten years ago, but in the end they never reached the market. They were not yet what we wanted them to be.

So we waited. For the right supplier, for experience, for development — and for the moment when we would know how to create footwear that would not be just another product in the collection.

Functional alone was not enough for us

The first NORTHFINDER shoe collections that did reach the market were already functional and well made, and customers took to them. Yet something was still missing — something that would make you say: this is NORTHFINDER.

So when we developed the next generation, we did not start with the question of how the shoe should look. First we worked out who we are actually making it for, where they will wear it, what they need to handle in it and which properties should help them do that.

Only then came the design.

One of the first models in which this approach came through in full was the Nanda. Its development took roughly a year and a half to two years, and the result was meant to be a full-fledged technical hiking shoe that does not have to pretend colour has no place in the mountains.

Outdoor footwear traditionally builds on safe colours — black, brown or grey. We decided to try another route.

That is how the idea of Joyful meets performance came about: to combine uncompromising function, technical materials and the properties you need in the mountains with colours and a design you can simply enjoy.

An idea can arrive in a car park

The design of the Nanda did not come out of a single brainstorming session either.

Our designer calls this process “creative fermentation” — the period when all the research, discussions and inputs gradually come together until a concrete idea emerges from them.

In the Nanda’s case it arrived on the way to a ski trip. When the car pulled up at the resort, skiing was set aside. Luckily there was an iPad in the boot, and she spent the next two hours sketching in the car park.

A sketch, however, is only where developing a shoe begins.

A sample is not a finished shoe

Before a model makes it into the collection, practically everything can change — the construction of the tongue, the lacing, the materials and the outsole.

With the barefoot models, for example, we compared two different outsoles. At first glance one had a more pronounced structure and tread pattern, so it might seem that this would be the one to grip better on the trail. Testing showed the opposite.

Grip is not determined only by what you can see on the outsole. The composition of the rubber compound and how it behaves on a particular surface matter too. That is also why we use Vibram outsoles and work with different compounds depending on the type of footwear — for example Vibram Megagrip, with high grip even on wet rock, or XS Trek Evo, which suits classic hiking and longer trekking.

The insole is a similarly inconspicuous detail. In our models we use Ortholite, which holds its shape even with long-term use. On a hike lasting several hours it is not only the headline technical parameters that decide. Comfort and foot fatigue also depend on how the shoe fits, how much it weighs and what happens inside it after kilometres of walking.

Testing means actually using the shoes

That is why samples do not stay in the office. With some of them we try the opposite — to wear them as close to the limit of what they can do as possible.

The shoes were tested by our in-house team and by people for whom the mountains are a natural environment — high-altitude porters, mountain rescuers and testers who took them to the Tatras, the Alps, the Andes and Patagonia.

And they did not always confirm what we would have expected.

Under a heavier load, for instance, it might seem obvious to reach for a high hiking boot. Yet when the mountain porters could choose a model to test, several of them preferred low approach or hiking shoes. An experienced hiker with a strong ankle may need something different from a shoe than someone who only heads into the mountains occasionally.

That is also why, in our view, there is no single “best hiking boot”. There is a shoe that suits a particular person, terrain and use.

From multisport to barefoot hiking

Step by step, a collection came together for different ways of moving outdoors: the multisport Nanda and Nanga models, classic hiking footwear, approach shoes for more technical rocky terrain, lightweight models for travel and everyday outdoor wear, and the Danda and Dorje barefoot shoes.

Barefoot was in fact the category our designer was sceptical about at first. Although she has worn barefoot footwear herself since 2012, for a long time she could not find a model in which she felt safe and stable enough in the mountains. So she took the first NORTHFINDER samples to the Dolomites — along with competitors’ barefoot shoes and classic hiking boots “just in case” in her backpack.