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Fashion

How Sperry is seizing the boat shoe’s revival

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By Sara Spruch-Feiner
May 13, 2024

On the heels of quiet luxury, prep is having a moment. As part of that, the boat shoe, pioneered by Sperry in 1935 with its iconic Top-Sider style, is making a comeback. In January, Authentic Brands Group acquired Sperry. Through the acquisition, the Aldo Group came on board as Sperry’s North American operating partner for wholesale, e-commerce and store operations, as well as the brand’s partner for footwear design, production and distribution globally.

To discuss the revival, we spoke to Aldo Group president Jonathan Frankel, who oversees Sperry. He shared how the brand is fueling its resurgence with a series of on-trend campaigns and cool collabs with Todd Snyder and Chris Echevarria — and what he thought about Miu Miu’s take on the boat shoe.

When did you first realize the brand was about to have a major moment in the spotlight?

“In the fall of 2023, it became clear that the quiet luxury trend mixing with a modern, younger, more inclusive preppy look was taking shape. There’s no better footwear paired with this look than the Sperry boat shoe and a couple of other styles we have, as well, which have always been iconic styles within that look. It’s a trend that then was very quickly adopted by brands — Miu Miu walked it down its [spring 2024] runway with a style that fused a loafer with a boat shoe. But is purest form is Sperry’s AO, or Authentic Original, which is the original boat shoe, [designed in] the 1930s. That hasn’t changed at all. We have the originator status, in terms of that trend.”

What is Sperry doing to appeal to a new generation of customers?

“We’ve worked on a lot of exciting collaborations, helped the brand become a little more bold — in colors, materials and iterations of the original boat shoe — and built that storytelling around those core styles. Plus, we really wanted to make sure we didn’t fix something that wasn’t broken. … It’s really what we layer on top of it that makes it even more relevant for the here and now and more relevant for a younger consumer who is very in tune with colors and materials. They’re not necessarily asking you to change constructions or styling — they love the timelessness. But they’re definitely expecting brands to have a bit more relevancy, when it comes to options outside the core browns, blacks and greens. So that’s why we’ve done collaborations with Chris Echevarria and Todd Snyder, for example.”

What’s next for the brand?

“We’re continuing to work on more collaborations for 2025. We have a dedicated team that solely focuses on these creative collaborations to unlock the full potential of these partnerships. … That’s the best way we can allow the brand to extend itself into new directions and new creative avenues, and harness the power of those collaborations for credibility.”

What did you and the Sperry team think when you saw that Miu Miu shoe walk down the runway?

“They always say that imitation is the highest form of flattery. We’re big fans of a lot of the luxury brands and what they do. They’re obviously very good at what they do, whether it’s bringing products to market or identifying key styles, and we love how they drive trends. We applaud their participation in this space, because the more, the merrier. It gives even more credibility to what we’ve been doing for 90 years and what we plan to continue doing. You may even see those brands becoming targets for our collaborations in the future, as they always want to anchor themselves with the originators of the trends. We’d be honored and excited about where those discussions go.”

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