Care as Cultural Currency: Jo Farah and the Global Rise of Sneaker LAB

Discover how Jo Farah’s Sneaker LAB transformed sneaker care into a movement where fashion culture meets conscious living.

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When Jo Farah launched Sneaker LAB in 2012, the fashion industry was on the cusp of being transformed by hypebeast culture. It was the year of Air Yeezy Ils, Virgil Abloh’s PYREX VISION, and collaborations where streetwear and high fashion collided in ways that would define the decade. In this climate, sneakers became cultural currency.

Yet while sneaker prices climbed, their care remained a DIY afterthought. Toothbrushes, dish soap, and baking soda did the rounds on forums, and the industry was running high on fast-fashion fuel with an endless churn of limited drops and fake scarcity. In the middle of hype culture’s peak, Farah bet on something no one was talking about: sustainable care.

Instead of feeding the cycle, Sneaker LAB asked what responsibility came with consumption. Farah’s contrarian instinct paid off. Fast-forward thirteen years, and his Cape Town-born company has become a global pioneer leading the clean sneaker movement across 65+ countries with a probiotic-driven formula so advanced, it’s technically safe to drink.

And today, that same ethos is expanding beyond sneakers. With the recent launch of GoodBasics, a probiotic home care brand, Farah is extending his philosophy into the spaces we live in. From sneakers to kitchens, the idea remains the same: clean living is about conscious choices that ripple through how we live, what we consume, and how we balance personal care with responsibility for the world around us.

Global by Design, Grounded at Home

Building a biotech sneaker-care brand out of Cape Town was never the obvious play. South Africa, after all, isn't the first country the world looks to for global fashion innovation. And yet, that outsider status became part of the brand’s edge.