Paola Shah brings innovation to athletic grip socks
LONGMONT — Paola Shah is passionate about socks, not just because she owns a business that makes a special kind of athletic sock.
“It turns out I love socks. I love colorful socks,” said Shah, founder and chief executive officer of Tucketts. “But I didn’t like what was available.”
Shah, a Longmont resident moving to Boulder in August, founded Tucketts Inc. in January 2014 because she couldn’t find the right type of sock for things like Pilates, yoga and barre exercises.
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Tucketts, a woman-run business based in New York City and Boulder, creates a line of athletic toeless grip socks for practitioners of barefoot exercises, ballet and dance.
The toeless socks are specially designed to help with balance and stability during workouts, while also allowing for the sensation of being barefoot and minimizing the risk of infection.
“There are workouts it’s better to not do with shoes,” Shah said, adding that wearing socks is advantageous, since feet can sweat and become slippery. “The purpose of the sock is basically to give you more stability. When you feel stable, you feel confident.”
Shah came up with the idea for the toeless socks while doing market research for a friend who wanted to open a Pilates studio in Los Angeles, where she had lived at the time. She visited several Pilates, yoga and barre studios and saw that clients wore socks for safety and hygienic reasons as they did their exercises on yoga mats and reformers. She learned that traditional socks with grippers proved to be uncomfortable, since feet tend to move around in them and they don’t allow for connection to the ground to help with balance.
“With the available socks at the time, the quality was not great, the grippers were falling from the socks, and the design was extremely simple and boring. And the socks were all closed-toed,” Shah said.
Traditional socks completely cover the foot, which affects the connection between that area of the body and the brain, reducing the amount of information that can be transmitted, Shah said. By having the socks partially open, the feet, which have the highest number of nerve endings, can have sensory contact with the floor or ground, she said.
“That also affects posture. Our feet tell our brain how we have to stand up,” Shah said.
Tucketts’ socks help support postural alignment and balance to increase body awareness and stabilize stance for more dynamic movement. The business’s tagline simplifies the dynamic as “Open toes, open mind.”
The socks also help fitness instructors, who can gather information about their students from their stances, such as if they are feeling nervous or not confident, Shah said.
“The feet don’t lie,” Shah said. “You can tell by the toes if a person is tense or relaxed when they’re doing something.”
Maren Watkins, co-owner of UpBeat Barre certification training, and the other three co-owners use Tucketts to teach their barre classes, she said.
“We absolutely love Tucketts for their ease of putting on — no individual toes to put in that takes forever,” Watkins said. “Tucketts are way more modern in design and styles. Other barre socks are old-fashioned and traditional. These socks feel fresh and cute to wear as an outfit accessory, as well as super functional to help with stability in foot fitness.”
Krystal Rodriguez, creator of opportunities at Tucketts, wears the grip socks for fitness and around the house. She likes that while exercising, the socks protect her feet and keep them dry and clean, while preventing slipping.
“I love the fact that Tucketts are vibrant and colorful and all my toes are out,” Rodriquez said. “I’m more of a barefoot person, but these are like being barefoot. … It actually feels like I have nothing on my feet, which definitely helps with the dry skin that walking barefoot causes.”
Tucketts’ toeless socks fit all foot shapes and sizes. Shah noticed when people put on traditional gripper socks, some struggled to get them on due to the length, shape and positioning of their toes and from bunions and other foot issues.
By having the toes open, the socks help strengthen foot muscles and prevent tendon overuse and injury. The grippers are sticky to help with foot grip on various surfaces, instead of a regular sock that can slip around. The material is thin and made out of a high-quality cotton mixture that allows for air flow and helps absorb sweat — alternatively, a low-quality material can increase sweating.
“The grippers don’t fall (off) after multiple uses and washes,” Shah said.
Tucketts offers socks in a variety of cuts, such as allegro, anklet, ballerina and knee-highs, and in colors from neutral to bright and a range of patterns and designs.
“I personally believe color brings happiness,” Shah said. “Colorful socks make you smile. Your day is going to be better.”
Shah makes her socks using sustainability practices and following her belief in achieving balance among people, planet and profit. Her company has an environmental and social mission to Elevate YOU Through Your Feet.
To carry out the mission, Shah uses recycled cotton to save on millions of liters of water that would be needed to grow the cotton. She partnered with a factory in Colombia to manufacture the socks and to support emerging manufacturing regions, allowing for diversification in the apparel industry — her company is the only grip sock company that doesn’t manufacture in East Asia. The packaging also is sustainable and is 100% tree-free, since it is made using sugar cane fiber that is biodegradable and recyclable.
Shah gives a portion of Tucketts’ proceeds to various initiatives, including Tucketts for Peace for peace building, as well as Tucketts for Trees, Tucketts for Seas and Tucketts for Bees, plus its latest initiative, Tucketts for Feet that provides prosthetics for children in partnership with another organization.
“I love how from a very small detail like a pair of socks you can boost confidence in someone,” Shah said.
Shah also loves barefoot workouts, nature, colors, traveling, sustainability and helping people, as she listed in her LinkedIn profile. She likes to do Pilates, Zumba and dance in particular, she said.
“My real, real passion is hiking to be outdoors, climbing mountains and hiking mountains,” Shah said. “I’m in the perfect place living in Colorado.”
Shah, who originated from Colombia, attended the Universite Paris Nanterre, where she earned a master’s degree in economics analysis of development in 2003. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and international relations in 2000 from the Universidad Externado de Colombia. She worked in foreign affairs for several years before founding her business, including for the department of finance in Colombia and the Embassy of Panama in London.
“Tucketts is the place where my dreams come true,” Shah said. “I always loved colorful socks and color in general, and I have a big passion for sustainability.”
Rodriquez likes that Shah cares about her brand, her team, her customers and the world, she said.
“As cliché as this sounds, this is what pushes her to be better,” Rodriquez said. “She doesn’t change the passion she has to uplift — people, communities, small businesses — for money. She stays true to herself, how she wants her company to look and lead in a market that sometimes is all about making a buck.”
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