Item of the Week: Red Wing Boots

This week’s Item of the Week is the Red Wing model 1907 workboot, a classic design hardly updated in the company’s 100 years in business.

Photo of the model 1907 courtesy of Red Wing Shoes.

The fashionable 1907 model with white crepe soles (retail: about $230), or its lug-soled cousin sold through J. Crew (retail: $225) or the company’s traditional 875 model (retail: $187)—all roughly the same boot—have been appearing on runways and in fashion magazines with such frequency lately that the company set up a blog to keep track of it all: Redwingcasualmarketing.blogspot.com.

We saw them on models at a fashion presentation for Gilded Age during New York’s Fashion Week, and they appeared on the runways for Loden Dager and Obedient Sons. Designer Tim Hamilton endorses them in a recent article in the online magazine Valet.

What’s with the white sole? Red Wing lore says “the white sole allowed a farmer’s wife to see his boots were clean when entering the house.”