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Allbirds makes and sells comfortable shoes and clothes, mostly made from natural materials like merino wool, for men and women.
Allbirds is a shoe and clothing company. It sells sneakers, running shoes, and everyday apparel for men and women, and it built its reputation on one big idea: make comfortable shoes out of natural materials like merino wool and eucalyptus fiber instead of the usual plastic-heavy stuff. People buy them because they are soft, machine-washable, and marketed as a greener choice than typical sneakers.

The company sells mostly through its own website and its own stores, with a smaller slice coming from retail partners. That direct-to-consumer setup means it keeps more of each sale but also pays for the stores, the website, and the marketing itself. Its plain-wool running shoe, the Wool Runner, became the signature product, and for a while the brand was a Silicon Valley favorite — even Leonardo DiCaprio and Barack Obama were photographed wearing them. The business has had a rough ride since its 2021 stock market debut. It grew fast on hype, then demand cooled, and the company has been losing money and closing stores to cut costs. In 2025 it made a big pivot: it rebranded the parent company as Smartbird and announced a shift toward an artificial intelligence computing business, a striking turn for a shoemaker. That bet is still unproven, and the core shoe business remains much smaller than it once was.
So the honest picture is a once-trendy footwear brand trying to find its footing while its new leadership bets on something completely different. The shoes still exist and are still sold online and in stores, but the company's future now hinges less on wool sneakers and more on whether its strange new direction pays off.
Saved answer · last researched 14 Nov 2026