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From SGB Today:
Is Minimal Footwear Ready For A Comeback?

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I not seeing any hints of this in sales figures nor any other trends except for the wishful thinking comments from manufacturers and those who invested so much emotional energy into it. Wishing they make a comeback is very different to them making an actual comeback.

If it does make a comeback, hopefully it is not accompanied by the usual unsupported rhetoric and propaganda and outright lies by the evangelists.

 

Here is the latest Google trends graph for 'barefoot running shoes' and 'minimalist running shoes' over 5 yrs

 

and last 12 months:

 

Just checked with my sales figures contact ... no change - they still "barely even register anymore"

What drove the barefoot/minimalist trend?
- look at all the books on it
- look at all the websites devoted to it
- look at all the evangelists pushing it
- etc
how did it fail?

What is driving maximalism?
- nothing more than runners just liking the shoes
- no books on it; no websites on it; no evangelists promoting it

Since 2014, just the Hoka brand has outsold the entire minimalist category at the run speciality level. Runners vote with their feet ..

 

TBH they should not really have left ie needing a come back the issue is the BS that surrounded them, for some people the minimalist shoe or barefoot is the way they should be running to have a lesser chance of an overuse injury. For others the opposite