From Portland OR, the city that made weird cool, comes an innovative minimal shoe that is great for both running around town and dressing up for a night out on the town—however you wear them, you will surely get compliments and people wondering where they can get a pair, too.

Skora Form, $195.00, www.skorarunning.com

The Good: These shoes will hold up to any test with craftsmanship and an intrepid design that  takes your everyday running shoe to the next level.

The Bad: If your feet run hot, the leather may keep them even toastier in hot weather. Practice triple knotting the long laces and tie your shoes tight—the leather may stretch the more you run.

The Ugly: Vegetarians and vegans beware; you may not want to chomp down on these shoes. But fortunately, there’s a vegan model for you, too.

What type of shoe do you get when you mix a goatskin upper, a sheepskin liner and a stylish and innovative minimal shoe company out of Portland, Oregon? You get the Lexus of running shoes by emerging shoe company Skora. With many teasers and plenty of hype, Skora entered the competitive minimal shoe market back in February with two shoe models, Form and Base. For over a year I’ve had sightings of sketches and heard comments out of Skora HQ in Portland about the upcoming revolutionary design, so I’ve been excited to see what the company would unveil out of the city I grew up in.

So what makes Skora Form the Lexus of running shoes? Well, first, even the unboxing of the shoe was an event in and of itself. The hefty box has a magnet closure, extra pair of red shoelaces, a Skora sticker and Skora’s philosophy and vision to think freely and “Run Real.” The sturdy box even came in handy for storing my girlfriend’s tools. As for the shoe, the Form upper and inner are made of goat and sheep leather, something that may create a dilemma for all of you sheep and goat lovers out there. Even though I’m pescatarian (AKA wannabe vegetarian), that hasn’t held me back from cruising around town in these fancy kicks. The craftsmanship of the shoes is a work of art, with what clearly is a lot of care put into each stitch of the shoe upper. The sole of the Form has a creative, flexible design—Skora uses lots of fancy technical language to describe how innovative the sole is—but for me the real test came on the streets of D.C. and in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.

My first runs in these shoes were on muggy, humid days. I almost hesitated to even run in them the first week because I didn’t know if they’d be too toasty and I didn’t want to ruin their elegant look. For most of my initial runs, I wore socks (not something I like to do) because I didn’t think skin and leather were a good match, and the feel on the inside of the shoe did not seem barefoot friendly. While running with a friend, we started picking up on a repetitive sound similar to a tap dancer on pavement (a very poor tap dancer). Low and behold it was my feet. After those initial runs I had mixed feelings about the shoes, but held off on my final judgment, thinking that the shoes may need to be worn in a bit more.

Fast forward a couple weeks after my initial runs and a 100 mile race in the mountains of Virginia (for which I wore my New Balance MT110’s and Hoka Mafate’s), and I was ready to take the Forms out for some more miles. This time, I decided to wear them naked—I mean with clothes on, but my feet were sockless. The 13mm sole stack height provided adequate protection and ground feel on gravel, packed dirt, grass and pavement. My feet were able to splay out and stretch the leather, making my still post-100 healing feet happy. As it turned out, a combination of a well-designed anatomical foot shape, no tongue construction, wearing in the shoes and finding the perfect balance for lace tightness helped me adjust to the Forms.

The final Skora

My initial suspicions that my feet would get hot were confirmed, due in part to wearing socks. But once I went sockless, my feet were a tad less toasty and the Sheepskin leather felt pretty nice to the skin’s touch. I would imagine that these are great shoes in cold to mild weather.

I got some glances and comments by other runners to find out what I was wearing, but most of all, I received many compliments about how good-looking my running shoes were while walking around the office and out on the town. Did I mention these are a great travel shoe to wear casually, too?

There are still some things Skora may want to consider altering for future updates. The extra long laces make a triple knot necessary (I discovered that I’m good at tying one). I also noticed that the Skora decal rubbed off on the elastic heel strap, which may be a concern since the company is continually working to get its name out there.

I would not consider the Form to be a fast racing shoe. The Form works well for your everyday run. From the looks of the Skora Base model, I would imagine that it is a great complement to the Form as its faster racing sibling. For a shoe that came out of the rainy Pacific Northwest, I was surprised it was leather, but I’ve heard rumors that the leather gets nice and soft as it gets wet. The shoe currently comes in a bit pricey, but that may be because of the craftmanship and materials and because Skora is a new company. As Skora picks up traction in the market, I’m guessing (and hoping) the Form will drop in price, too. As an emerging company, Skora created a well-designed and worthy competitor, almost making a category of its own with the Form.

Tags:  awesome barefoot running footwear form minimalist running running shoes skora tech trail running