Perhaps what recently happened to
Jenn Stimple, a wardrobe stylist for TV and film, has also happened to you.
Stimple said that after a colleague complimented her shoes — a pair of Chelsea
boots from Blundstone — she pointed out that several people on set were wearing
the same style. “If you look around, that person has them on, and that person
has them on, and that person,” she said she told her colleague.
اضافة اعلان
On a flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles in
December, I had a similar experience: Three people in my row (including me)
were wearing
Blundstone boots.
Stimple, 40, who lives in New York, owns
two pairs from the brand: one in brown leather with a round toe, which she
bought in 2015, and another in faded black leather with a square toe. “They’re
just really easy to pull on and take off at home after a long day,” she said.
Boots, like other clothes, every so often
become characteristic of particular moments in time. In the early 1990s, there
were Timberlands; in the early 2000s, Uggs; and in the early 2010s, Red Wings.
After years of an unpredictable pandemic in which many people sought
comfortable, versatile clothes that did not compromise style, it seems that
Blundstone’s Chelsea boots — a shoe free of laces and buckles — may be what
fashion historians point to as the boot of the early 2020s.
‘Pieces with character’The Worth Global Style Network, a trend
forecasting company also known as WGSN, named Blundstone a brand to watch in
2021. “It’s a brand that’s associated with traveling a lot of miles and being
able to weather that punishment, providing durability, longevity and comfort in
extremes,” Lorna Hall, the director of fashion intelligence at WGSN, said in an
email.
“It’s a brand that’s associated with traveling a lot of miles and being able to weather that punishment, providing durability, longevity and comfort in extremes.”
These qualities, she added, align with
another shopping trend her firm has observed: “Consumers taking a soulful,
minimalist approach to what they buy, prioritizing longevity and investment
pieces with character.”
Woldy Reyes, 36, a chef and the owner of a
catering company in New York, bought his Blundstone boots in 2017. “I can stand
in them for hours,” he said of his black leather pair with shearling inside. “I
know so many other chefs who wear them in the kitchen.”
The boots have “some level of slip
resistance”, Reyes added, “and they’re easy to clean up, just wipe with a rag.”
From the kitchen, he will wear his pair “out onto the dirty streets of New
York”, he said. And when he goes upstate, he wears them in the woods.
Carina Wolff, a content creator in Los
Angeles, was inspired to buy Blundstone boots in 2021 after constantly seeing
her husband in his pair. “I wear them with overalls or mom-jeans-style pants,”
she said, “during the day, running errands all over.” Wolff, 32, added that she
can wear her faded brown-leather boots out to dinner, too.
From England, to Australia, to the worldThe frequency and zeal with which product
recommendation websites, including those of GQ, New York magazine, and the New
York Times, have written about Blundstone’s boots over the past few years may
suggest that the brand is some hot new label. But as some of those websites
have noted, the company was founded more than 150 years ago, in 1870, by the
married couple John and Eliza Blundstone.
“A few years back heritage brands got really hot, and then Chelsea boots got really hot, and here we were, with this 150-year-old company that makes Chelsea boots.”
Back then the founders imported Chelsea
boots made in England, where the style originated, to the Australian state of
Tasmania, where they lived and started the business. By 1900, the company had
opened its first factory in Tasmania, and in 1932 the business was acquired by
the brothers Thomas and James Cuthbertson, whose descendants are its current
owners. Though some Blundstone footwear is still made in Tasmania, it is also
made in Vietnam, China, Mexico, and Indonesia.
Tim Engel, the vice president of sales at Blundstone,
started working for the company 17 years ago. He said that interest in its
Chelsea boots, which start at about $200, began to surge over the past five to
eight years because of a confluence of trends.
“A few years back heritage brands got really
hot, and then Chelsea boots got really hot, and here we were, with this
150-year-old company that makes Chelsea boots,” Engel said on a video call.
Around the same time, Blundstone began
expanding its retail footprint in the US. Its footwear, which was already sold
at REI locations, tack-and-feed stores, and small boutiques, started to be
carried by Nordstrom in 2015. Madewell began carrying the brand in 2019, the
same year Blundstone opened its first store in the US: a seasonal pop-up shop
in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. That was followed by another seasonal
store in Manhattan.
Last year, about 20 percent of Blundstone’s
total sales were in the US, said Adam Blake, a joint chief executive of the
company. Five years ago, purchases in the US accounted for about 5 percent of
Blundstone’s total sales, he added.
VersatilityBeth Herget, a vice president of
merchandising at Madewell, said Blundstone’s Chelsea boots have an adaptability
that resonates with consumers. “You can really take them from city to country,”
she said. “It’s an all-weather boot, and it can be dressed up or dressed down.”
“You can really take them from city to country,” she said. “It’s an all-weather boot, and it can be dressed up or dressed down.”
Logos, for the most part, are subtly
embossed on the boots’ soles and embroidered on their pull-on straps. Herget
said the boots have a sleek, classic look that appeals to customers who want
something “modern”, as well as to those who want “a sense of timelessness”.
Engel, the Blundstone executive, said that
one of the most telling signs that the boots were reaching a wider audience
came last fall. When his two children returned from their separate colleges for
Thanksgiving, both told him they had seen a lot of Blundstones on campus.
“I was just laughing to myself,” Engel
said. He added, jokingly, “I didn’t even know that my kids knew what I did.”
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