In the Workshop

We love hearing feedback from our customers! We’re excited to host a new survey that focuses on our website’s design and interactivity, and we’d love to hear your thoughts. Anyone who completes this survey will receive a free $5 gift card for Soft Star Shoes and will also be entered into a drawing to receive […]

Gwen, one of our innovative designer elves, has been hard at work on her latest creation. She’s putting the final touches on a project we’ve been dreaming about for a long time: the Soft Star ballet flat! Our new ballet flat will be offered in a variety of materials, colors and motifs. We’re now excited […]

Several weeks ago, we were approached by a group of young documentary filmmakers who were interested in our company background and shoemaking process. They were working on a project to profile companies handcrafting goods in the Pacific Northwest and asked if they could visit us and film the action in our workshop. We happily agreed! […]

How would you like some nice wood paneling on your shoes? No, we’re not modeling our shoes after my father’s 1978 station wagon, but we do have another woody feature: cork! Cork! Gold speckles glimmering in the light. We recently acquired a special limited supply of decorative cork-lined fabric. This thin, smooth material is adorned […]

Walking Lesson We’re big fans of Michael Sandler at Soft Star. We met the barefoot guru and his wife, Jessica Lee, shortly after they released their first book, Barefoot Running, in 2011. Several members of our staff befriended the happy couple after attending one of their touring workshops, and they visited our Soft Star workshop […]

Elf Erica (or as I like to call her, Elfrica) has the most physically demanding job at Soft Star. As our expert sole attacher, it’s her job to make Vibram soles stick to the bottom of our RunAmocs. While this involves a lot of gluing and trimming, it also requires a good bit of hammering […]

As some of our readers may recall, we made a special pair of shoes for Missy Franklin after the Olympics ended last summer. The swimmer and four-time gold medalist said in an interview that she had trouble finding shoes to fit her size 13 feet. Upon hearing this, our seamstresses went to work right away […]