Shoes and the city

We gave forty pairs of the same shoe to forty people in five cities and asked for them back after six months. What came back was more useful than any lab test.

Where soles actually wear

Almost every returned pair had worn through at the outer heel and the ball of the foot, and almost nowhere else. The middle third of the outsole was, in most cases, barely touched.

That finding changed the RUNNER. Rather than a full rubber outsole, it now carries rubber pods only where the tread actually goes — which took forty grams out of the shoe without shortening its life.

The upper tells a different story

Uppers failed almost exclusively at the flex point across the vamp, and always on shoes that had been worn on consecutive days. It is the single strongest argument for owning two pairs and alternating.

• design
• wear-testing
• lifestyle