You are in:
Cleatskins
It's genuinely not often that you see a completely new product, so Cleatskins are quite a refreshing sight. The idea came from Marianne and Rick Kay, an American couple with a sporting son, who wasn't allowed in the house in his cleated shoes; in the UK, we call them studs. So the idea was born to create a product which meant their son could enter the house without taking his boots off; the end result is Cleatskins, almost like a rubber cover which slips over the boot to create a flat, non-slip sole for the wearer. Marianne Kay takes up the story...
SGB: What was it about your son's situation that helped you come up with the idea for Cleatskins?
Marianne Kay: My partner Rick was banished to the front stoop with Jessie (our son) with cleaning out the cleats, or changing out the cleats because he had removable spikes or studs. He was changing them out and he was tired of doing it so often, because our son had a tendency to run around with his cleats off the field. So Rick thought, ‘wait a minute, why can't there be something that will protect the cleats and protect the athlete...' He started looking and found nothing. Cleatskins were born, and we started working on it from there.
SGB: What are they made from?
MK: They are made out of Skintek rubber, a specific compound of compression-moulded rubber which is very durable yet malleable and lightweight. You slip them over your cleats as a protective cover that serves many purposes. First to protect the spikes from wear and tear because you want the ultimate performance when you are out on the field. It's not only to protect the spikes themselves, but also to protect the athlete, because often if you are hard surfaces there is not enough friction with the floor, so it protects against slips and falls. It also protects the flooring that you are on - carpets, hardwood, the car interior, from the dirt and grass that you are carrying around from the game.
SGB: What are the RRPs, and are there many different types?
MK: Depends on the model, but our smallest size retails for $17.95 and our largest size is for $19.95 in the US. Two specialised versions came out in June, Cleatskins Premier, which is specifically for football (soccer) and rugby, and that retails for $22.95, and Cleatskins Pro, for field hockey, at the same price. Cleatskins Golf has also recently been released and retails for $29.95.
What we have out now is for all cleated sports, but we expect Cleatskins Premier to probably be our most popular line overseas, and Cleatskins Golf as well.
SGB: Does this add significant height for the wearer or is it a low-profile sleeve?
MK: It follows the profile of the original shoe. It is not built up in the heel. We do have a protective layer that is only about a quarter of an inch.
It doesn't add height - probably a quarter of an inch or less. It is because you are encapsulating the cleats, you have to take into account the height of the studs. This took a bit longer than we expected - we have a load of experience on our design team, the core members come from Nike and Reebok. When we were putting together the team of designers to solve the problems we were experiencing, we were told it is more difficult to design a skin for an athletic shoe than it is to design an athletic cleat.
We need it to be snug, because you to be sure that the athlete is completely secure whenever they are walking. We had to make sure that it was malleable for it to be easy to put on. Then it had to be impermeable on the bottom, yet lightweight so that the athlete wouldn't mind either carrying it around or wearing it, and it has to fit any number of styles of cleats. I think we have addressed all those... It was a bit complicated, but I think we have solved it in something that looks actually quite simple.
SGB: So were there problems in developing something that must have a universal fit, for all brands of shoe?
MK: We have separated the original Cleatskin sole product into two different models, Premier and Pro, so they are much more accurate fits for a specific sport. The biggest issue was designing the correct topline that would encompass the natural curve of everybody's shoe so that we would grip and hold. It would be easy to design something that would just look pretty on a cleat, but that wouldn't necessarily give you the needed grip when you flexed your foot or turned a corner. That was extremely important to us - it was ‘safety first'.
Cleatskins is currently searching for UK and European distributors - contact Darren Phillips at Pure Sports Marketing on 01332 866 455 or email darren.phillips@weknowsport.com for more information.
