What do you get when you cross a classic workman’s boot with a graphic art designer known for creating eye-popping murals and shop interiors? A bright and brash collection that’s not for the faint of heart, that’s what. Cat Footwear commissioned French-born, London-based Camille Walala to apply her quirky prints to its classic Colorado style for Spring ’15, and the results are striking.
The Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America (FDRA), the United States’ largest footwear trade association, has released a comprehensive Footwear Production Code of Conduct in an effort to establish a common baseline that will drive uniformity within the footwear industry and help clearly communicate and uphold the social norms and values commonly held by FDRA members. From working hours and overtime to structural safety and transparency, the code is a guide that ensures any factory that adheres to its standards is compliant with industry expectations.
As part of its overall commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), in 2007 Timberland set a number of aggressive performance targets with the goal of achieving them by 2015. Today, the VF Corp.-owned brand has announced that as of year-end 2013, due to persistent efforts to reduce its environmental impact, the brand has already hit two critical goals. Specifically, Timberland has reduced its GHG emissions by 50 percent, almost two years ahead of schedule, and 26 percent of its energy is now derived from renewable sources.
Former United Stated President Bill Clinton is a keynote pro. He’s delivered speeches at everything from the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies to the Temple Law Foundation, and later this month he will head to Melbourne to speak at the 2014 AIDS Conference. But luckily for Skechers, the in-demand speaker was able to carve time out of his busy schedule to deliver the keynote address at the Manhattan Beach, CA-based brand’s annual Global Conference on June 26.
Rocky Brands is encouraging consumers to share where their Georgia Boot and Rocky boots take them as part of a just-launched social media contest. Running through November, fans of Rocky are urged to post videos of themselves to Instagram wearing their boots in all walks of their lives (hunting excursions, personal adventures, work responsibilities) with the hashtag #EverySeasonEveryReason. Rocky will then provide a link in the comments section of each video where the entrant can claim his video and officially register to win.
Advanstar Licensing, organizers of Licensing Expo, reports that 15,702 licensing professionals attended the most recent three-day show at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, representing a 5 percent increase from last year’s event. The show featured 482 exhibiting companies in 218,872 net square feet with an additional 100,000 square feet of conference and special event space used daily. More press attended than ever before, too, with 120 journalists working the show and covering news from exhibitors.
Kate Middleton (Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, if you want to be official about it) is ubiquitous for rewearing outfits to royal engagements. But while many believe her humble roots are to thank for this down-to-earth practicality, perhaps she’s been taking notes from her grandmother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth, all along. The monarch has been wearing the same shoes for 50 years.
On Wednesday night on the 63rd floor of the not-yet-open One World Trade Center in New York City, with the city’s skyline twinkling in the background, Cat Footwear took to the catwalk as part of the J Summer Fashion Show, presented by J Model Management. Inspired by model, entrepreneur and founder of J Model Management Jessica Minh Anh’s vision, Cat was one of eight designers (and the only American brand) picked from four continents to celebrate cultural integration.
Good grief! Vans has teamed up with iconic comic strip Peanuts on a capsule collection of kicks for fall. Vault by Vans x Peanuts takes it back over three decades to reissue two vintage prints created to commemorate the opening of Camp Snoopy in Knott’s Berry Farm in 1983 and used on Vans footwear sold exclusively at the Southern California amusement park. Fall ’14 revives the long-gone prints on a selection of Vault by Vans Original Classics in a range of adult and toddler sized sneakers.
When 16-year-old New Yorker Chase Reed asked his father, Troy, for a loan of $50 towards the sneakers he’d once again stood in line all night waiting to buy, Troy decided to keep the kicks hostage until he got his money back. That got the 10th-grader thinking. Using his own five-figure stock of 45 mint-condition basketball shoes, he opened the world’s first sneaker pawn shop.
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