22 February 2011

Outdoor Retailer: Keen Footwear

Posts from the Outdoor Retailer Show keep on trickling in... This time, we have one of the more fun things that I saw at the Show this year.

Keen Footwear always has a great booth at the Outdoor Retailer. This year, they brought one of their sock machines, and were making socks live at the show.


I unfortunately forgot the machine operator's name, but he took a few moments to explain to me how the sock machine works. He said that the machine can weave together up to five different colors, and multiple thread types (wool, lycra, etc...) to make a seamless sock in whatever pattern is programmed into the computer. He also explained that the way the thread is pulled off of the spools is crucial to the finished quality of the socks, if the thread twists as it is coming off of the spool, it can cause loops and defects in the finished product.

Another feature of Keen socks is that they are foot-specific, with each toe box shaped to fit your left and right feet to give you a perfect fit and the ultimate in comfort.


Additional information on their socks, and on their footwear can be found at http://www.keenfootwear.com/

2 comments:

Best Hiking Boots said...

That's crazy! How cool would it be to see socks being made?! I love Keen. Their products are always the utmost quality. (I review a lot of their outdoor footwear on my blog, Best Hiking Boots.) We haven't posted any of their socks on there but I'm thinking I'll do a little blog post so people can see this article. Looks like it was fun. Thanks for sharing. :)

keen said...

Great article! Thank you for sharing this. Hope to read more form you.