As R.M.Williams expands its Australian capabilities its boots have never been more resonant
The creative directors of R.M.Williams boots on their favourite discoveries in the archives and why Australian style sticks.
The instructions on a pair of R.M.Williams boots sent back to the Adelaide repair workshop can be highly specific. You can see this in the rows and rows of them sent in from George Street, Sydney, or New Bond Street, London, with notes on the tags to just repair the sole or for only light polishing on the upper. Many people, says Amy Barnes, the brand’s head of footwear, want to keep the lived-in character of their boots.
“Sometimes people are prescriptive, sometimes they want them back to new, reset and then sometimes people are like ‘absolutely do not touch the uppers; I love it with every scuff and mark and dent of my life’,” she says.
There are few boots that the workshop can’t fix and judging by the buckets of foot form “lasts” – including one particularly clodhopping size 17 – few feet that cannot be fit into a pair of the 93-year-old brands’ boots.
Barnes says most people who visit the Adelaide workshop where R.M.Williams’ boots are still made, each pair requiring 88 pairs of hands, tend to be moved by the experience. Since August, the workshop has opened its doors to the public because people kept asking them to.
“I think when (the public) do come they really feel it and I think there’s that deep connection with the care of the manufacturer and feeling the heart and soul of the brand,” says Rachel Allen, chief design officer of R.M.Williams.
Indeed, it’s almost a sensory overload amid the hum and haw of the workshop to see how a single piece of leather is passed down the line to be “clicked” and “blocked” (cut and moulded into shape), the boot tugs sewn on by hand and the edges sanded off the sole. Many of the workers have been there for years, and so have their families. Our guide for a tour describes himself as a “freshie” given he’s only worked for the company for 10 years.
A leaderboard in the staff canteen honours those with 20, 30, 40 and 50 years of service.
Late last month the brand – now owned by Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s private investment company Tattarang, which purchased it from the French-owned L Catterton in 2020 – announced it was opening a new Adelaide manufacturing facility to increase its Australian production. For Allen it was a signal of the brand’s values around community and making things the way they always have. Also because the business, which last year expanded its capacity in women’s boot manufacturing and will soon open a new store in Bath in the UK, is growing.
Since 2022, for one, the business has doubled sales in its womenswear category. They opened three stores in NSW in October: Chatswood Chase, Castle Towers and Hornsby Westfield.
“I think opening means that we can continue to uphold the integrity … we need the space as well. We’re growing … we need to make more boots, but we want to do it in the same way we’ve always done it and fit to that,” she says.
Something Andrew Forrest said at the announcement of the new manufacturing facility has stayed with Allen. He described himself as mere “custodian” of the 93-year-old brand, responsible for seeing the brand through to the next generation.
It’s a philosophy that both Barnes and Allen see in their own roles. Recently, Barnes has spent time fossicking about in the brand’s archives, and along with rodeo chaps and stirrups and other curiosities, found several “tall boot” designs that she has brought back.
“There’s a big responsibility there to maintain what it always has been. The last shapes, some of them are 90 years old, some of them are coming up to 60 years old. The IP of the brand is just ingrained and we use that as a platform. In terms of our elastic sided boots we now have really focused on the materials … and how that can really change the energy of a boot and how you would wear it,” she says.
One of Barnes’ most thrilling discoveries was the Santa Fe, a rodeo square toe boot made with a screw sole that can only be made with a one-of-a-kind machine in the R.M.Williams workshop that is over 100 years old.
Both Barnes and Allen are wearing a pair of the boots for the interview. It’s these discoveries, says Barnes, that allow them to keep pushing the brand forward while staying connected to what has come before.
“These things have always been there. It’s not like we’ve suddenly created these things to respond to something. It’s like a bringing back because something is relevant, or our customer wants it in their lives. So it kind of gets reborn, reissued,” adds Allen.
Still the boots continue to find new audiences – lately they’ve been worn by everyone from Cillian Murphy to Daniel Craig and seemingly every second corporate type in the Sydney cafe where we conduct our interview (“we love spotting them in the wild”, smiles Barnes). Allen says Stanley Tucci was spotted in the London New Bond Street store the other day. Other fans include fashion “It Girl” Alexa Chung, Margot Robbie and former US president Bill Clinton.
Allen thinks the boots resonate in Australia and well beyond for several reasons.
“I think inherently there’s something no fuss about Australian style as well. (R.M.Williams boots) have become an iconic piece of Australian style, honestly. And I think it is recognised globally. Although we could argue where the Chelsea boot came from … but I think that there’s no fuss-ness to the Chelsea boot as well. It’s an enduring piece of classic, original style from the Beatles to Queen Victoria’s riding boots, to outback life,” she says.
“I think (Australia) is just finally being really recognised for how creative this country is and the ease at which we bring it as well. There’s kind of a no-nonsense … but there’s a strength and a nonchalance,” says Allen.
People appreciate well-made things, she says, perhaps more than ever.
“I think more and more people, including the younger generation, just really care about where stuff is made. They want to know how it’s made and the value behind the products and why we do things certain ways,” she says.
“There’s a real grounded safety in tradition as well and how things were made and that it’s going to stand the test of time.”
Perhaps R.M.Williams said it best himself, though, when he noted that “a person doesn’t work any worse for looking a whole lot better”.
Annie Brown travelled to Adelaide as a guest of R.M.Williams.
R.M.Williams is in partnership with News Australia’s Back Australia campaign.
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