Term Footwear, is a UK shoe brand, born and bred with British kids and British weather in mind.
Our first steps
Most parents can relate that school shoes are a stressful experience. Sharon and Lincoln, parents themselves and founders of Term, were no exception.
Facing a lack of quality and choice in children’s school shoes in the UK, they would take the opportunity to bring back good quality and comfy school shoes for their own children from South Africa, whenever they were across the equator visiting family.
Where is your entrepreneurial spirit?
On one particular trip across the globe, Sharon was discussing the lack of shoe options with her godfather – who is in the shoe business himself in South Africa – when he asked a question that hit a chord, ‘where is your entrepreneurial spirit?!’.
Why couldn’t they capitalise on this gap in the British market? And so began the journey with a single step in 2009. The South African school shoe brand, Toughees, weren’t just shoes; they were the answer to many a grumble from both child and parent.
Sharon and Lincoln became the UK distributors of Toughees and as they grew, they investigated designing their very own range, focusing on the requirements of the British market.
Hey, I put some new shoes on!
The designs were the culmination of years of feedback. A change of factory, with even greater capabilities meant in 2017, almost a decade on from the initial question that sparked the business, the first school shoe, designed with the British market in mind, was crafted. Term Footwear was officially born.
A step towards fashion
Young children wear school shoes because they are told to… but when they hit the secondary school age, parents battle a war for practicality and cost versus style and fashion.
Navigating such shoe requirements themselves, Sharon and Lincoln recognised the sneaky genius of creating a fashionable shoe that satisfied the need for support, comfort and fit as well.
Term Footwear were on a mission to provide choice to parents and individuality to kids, and as high street shops dwindled in numbers, this became even more prominent as a need.
Term Footwear stepped up to fill the gap.
Whilst still relatively new to the shoe space, and operating even during the difficulties of COVID, the team have been looking carefully at finding sustainable materials for their shoes, whilst also offsetting and reducing their eco-footprint in other ways (including receiving goods in by train with a train-route from China all the way to Essex in the UK!).
From a well-intentioned kick in the backside question of entrepreneurial spirit, to the hugely successful British-designed range, Term offers school shoes without the stress or the compromise.
