I currently own two pairs of Toms, in red and grey and am in love with them. I first heard about them through friends who began wearing them a lot! Initially I wasn't too excited about the prospect of paying £30 for a pair of my own, but after doing a little more research I became very interested in the brand.

Toms is a brand which carries the tag line 'one for one', which essentially means that for every pair of shoes that they sell the brand will donate a second pair for free to a child in a developing country. The creator of the brand, Blake Mycoskie visited Argentina in 2006 and found that children were without shoes. In the first year Blake was able to return to Argentina with 10000 pairs of shoes to donate, thanks to the one for one movement. This has continued to grow as Toms have grown in popularity, they can now be found in many high street stores such as office and schuch. By giving shoes to these children it enables them to avoid cuts and sores and potentially disease transmitted through the soil, as well as enabling many of them to attend school where shoes are a required part of the uniform and without them they cannot attend.

After hearing about the great ethos behind the brand, I decided to invest in a pair and I am so glad I did. Practically, Toms are very very comfortable shoes. I had no issues with needing to 'wear them in', they were great from the offset. They are made of fabric with a soft base, so are very flexible and I find they are great to wear when I have a long day walking around the city. The only downside to fabric shoes is that they can easily harbor odour, but I have washed mine in the machine many times and they come out clean and fresh every time, with no colour fade out either! The other downside to the shoes is that at the first site of rain these become very slippery to wear as they have no grip on the bottom! So these shoes are definitely weather dependent in terms of when they can be worn, but in the summer I live in mine! I would say a pair can last about a year and a half before they begin to wear out and need replacing, which I think is reasonable.

Overall I think this brand is brilliant in terms of the product it produces and the charity work it is involved in, as such I am giving a well deserved 5/5!