Why This Ugg and Nordstrom Veteran Decided to Start a New Sustainable Shoe Brand
After spending her career at some of the most storied shoe companies, Leah Larson is starting from scratch.
The industry veteran on March 22 launched Fleks, a new footwear brand founded in partnership with sustainable materials company Blumaka. Fleks debuted with its first product, the East Beach Slide, in six different colorways. The slides feature visible “flecks” of recycled material throughout its surface — which contributes to the brand’s name — and use 82 percent recycled high-performance shoe foam in each pair. The shoes retails for $65.
“Fleks is really a celebration of being different,” said Larson, who has spent her career in buying, merchandising and product creation at companies such as Nordstrom and Ugg. “We’re really celebrating all of those little nicks and differences in the materials. Our focus is just trying to keep things from going into the landfill, and showing that they’re beautiful.”
Blumaka, which launched in 2019, turns scrap foam from other factories in China into footwear midsoles and insoles that can be used by other shoe brands. The process, which uses less water than a traditional manufacturing process, involves grinding foam waste into smaller chunks and then molding those pieces to make recycled foam. The deck and strap of the Fleks slide is made via a similar process in manufactured in China. The product’s outsole is made with 15 percent recycled EVA.
The idea for Fleks came during a conversation between Larson and Stuart Jenkins, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Blumaka. Both Larson and Jenkins had kept in touch since working together at Deckers earlier in their careers. When Jenkins co-founded Blumaka, he showed Larson some of the sample products.
“I instantly thought of flip flops,” related Larson. “And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, we need to make shoes out of this. Flip flops and sandals. This is perfect for that.”
In 2022, that dream started to become a reality, when Larson officially joined Blumaka as chief merchandising officer and creative director and started getting to work on what would eventually become Fleks.
As a Santa Barbara-based footwear company, the East Beach Slide slide takes style notes from California surf culture but is made with an emphasis on comfort. Having spent much of her career in the comfort footwear space on the product side at Ugg and as a comfort buyer at Nordstrom, Larson was adamant that the shoes should feel great, in addition to looking cool.
“Your feet have to feel good,” Larson said. “This has all of the curves in the right places and the support in the right places without looking like a comfort shoe.”
Fleks is currently sold on the brand’s website and in a locally-owned Santa Barbara running store in Montecito, Calif., but will soon be available in Spyder Surfboards shops and two other West Coast retailers in the coming days. Larson also sees opportunity to position Fleks as a recovery shoe option in other independent stores or as a spa shoe.
“We’re going in slow,” Larson said. “We’d love to get into a lot of these surf shops and into that watering hole of surf culture and the people that are very fond of ocean health. It’s a place where we can tell the story.”
After the slide launch, Fleks will debut flip flops and some other products, but will keep the collection to curated “timeless silhouettes” that can be reinvented, Larson said. The brand is also working on a circularity program for people to send in their used Fleks to be recycled into new products.
“It’s a exciting time for me and the team,” Larson said, explaining how it feels to finally launch a brand that has been years in the making. “I have a 15-year-old son and doing something that has a deeper meaning is really important to me.”