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Why This Heritage Boot Brand Is (Finally!) Making Shoes for Women

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Photo: Courtesy Red Wing

We’ve all been guilty of stealing the odd shirt, jacket, and jeans from the men in our lives. But the one thing that’s not possible to borrow is their shoes! One often wonders, why wouldn’t companies make a slightly smaller version of their heritage styles to accommodate the ladies? Thank heavens Allison Gettings, the fourth generation in the family that owns Red Wing Shoes saw this as a big oversight and has decided to introduce the company’s first-ever Women’s Heritage collection. Yes, those lace-up boots you envy on your boyfriend’s feet when you guys are hiking in the woods or just strolling around the farmer’s market together are finally made for you too.

We caught up with Allison Gettings to get the lowdown on why the company decided to finally introduce their Heritage collection for women.

Yahoo Style: Why has it taken this long for Red Wing to do a women’s collection?

Allison Gettings: It was important for us to make sure that we had the bandwidth and support to make this launch successful. Over the past few years, we have focused on building relationships with our retail partners and getting our story out there. We are at a point now where women are asking us for the product — our retail partners are on board with the collection and excited to support it. It was also important to us to take our time with the collection, making sure that it was right for our brand and right for our consumer. Our company has been around for 111 years; if it takes us two years to nail a collection, we’d rather take it than rush through something that isn’t true to who we are.

YS: Why is the timing right now?

AG: There are a lot of things working for us right now. We have great relationships with our retail customers, who are willing to get behind the product. Women are already wearing many of our existing products so we know there’s demand. There’s also a growing consciousness among women around the world on buying products that align with their values. As a brand whose main pillars are quality craftsmanship and timelessness, we are in a unique position to help drive this movement as a counter-presence to fast-fashion. Now is the perfect time to add our voice to the conversation.

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Photo: Courtesy Red Wing

The collection is entirely made in the USA from leather made in Red Wing’s own tannery in Minnesota (one of the last remaining in the USA) and they looked to a mix of stylish women and the company’s Red Wing archives for this debut collection. Altogether, there are nine styles and 24 pieces and will include three categories — the Legacy, the Core, and the Modern collection.

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Photo: Courtesy Red Wing

Our favorite is the Core collection because it’s the most similar to the men’s Heritage collection — the Red Wing famous 875 boots and the Iron Ranger lace-up boot. All we need now is for the leaves to change, the nights to get a little cooler, and we can put the boots to some serious road testing!

The women’s line ranges in price from $290 to $550 and will be in select North America stores and on Redwingheritage.com starting September 6th

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