Ugg Will Try Anything To Get Dudes To Buy Its Shoes

When you hear the name “Ugg,” you likely think of fur-lined boots as ugly as they are comfortable, Paris Hilton, and roving packs of middle school girls. Those visions are burned into minds of men, but not for lack of recent efforts from Ugg. The brand is attacking the men’s market with a scattershot approach, keeping at it with longtime brand spokesperson Tom Brady while adding in ambassadorships with a smattering of other pro athletes — from Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade to Baltimore Ravens running back Danny Woodhead — as well as creating a collection with rapper Vic Mensa and collaborating with self-described “classic but twisted” designer Phillip Lim. The story with Ugg, as Chavie Lieber wrote for Racked in late 2015, is that a “bored accountant” named Brian Smith moved from Australia to California in 1977 and noticed U.S. beachgoers didn’t use the sheepskin-lined footwear ubiquitous among his former compatriots. What most stories leave out is that when Ugg was founded in 1978, it launched as a men’s brand. Now, Ugg is dedicated to making California its branding cornerstone under the guidance of Andrea O’Donnell, the president of fashion lifestyle brands for Ugg’s parent company, Deckers. Only by pulling from the Sunshine State — a place worthy of thousands and thousands of words deconstructing its myriad style influences — is Ugg able to keep a kaleidoscope of influences under a single tent. Mensa taps into the “urban” creative side of California, says O’Donnell. Lim is a little easier to explain — he’s Californian. Ugg also launched a “Collective” that includes Venice-born model Haden McKenna and Sakae, a surfer born in San Francisco and raised in Japan. Read more at Racked.