#031120: Rockport Archive/What Are Brown Shoes?

• Timeline:

  November 2003 -April 2007

• Company/Brand:

  Reebok International Limited/Rockport

• Work Type:

  Full-time designer

• Job Objectives:

  Concept design drawing, technical and functional CAD completion, specification deliverables for Special Markup Unit.

I started my design years at Rockport brand in the beginning of 2004. Rockport years mark a brand new chapter in my professional design years. The shear size and scale of the place I was working is extremely intimidating. Prior to my years at Rockport, the companies I worked for are all licensed or limited corporations.

Even though I was not familiar with Rockport brand prior to the job. However, the company where I go to work everyday is a name pretty much everyone on earth are known, Reebok. Yes, I was going to work at Reebok headquarter. Reebok was once one of the three major sports brands in the world.

As I am writing about Rockport in 2020. I am not sure if Rockport brand is still known or if the brand still in business since footwear brand like any consumer brand often exchange hands in ownership sold and bought. Nevertheless, Rockport brand created some very interesting footwear styles and silhouettes in its own footwear category.

Part of my job is to take well received inline silhouettes and reengineer these styles in a much lower cost than inline products (40%-60% lower). The majority of my creation goes to specific discount stores, such as Payless. These are basically low cost but high volume footwear I was working on.

In this unique product space Rockport created two sub-category line of products, walking shoes and comfort shoes. For example, at one point in history many hospital staffs are wearing Rockport walking shoes as part of their uniform because these shoes are so comfortable for walking in long periods of time.

I was hired to work on comfort shoes line of a low price point Special Markup Unit (SMU). Even though the product I design do not have fancy material or cool details and applications, but the volume in style and quantity is high.

This type of design direction is very different than all my previous design experiences. There are a lot of re-engineer taken place on the interior side of footwear, which mean what’s inside of a shoe is as important as the visible outside.

If you consider leather dress footwear is the category of formal footwear, and sneakers are the informal sports category footwear. Then you image a category of footwear that is in between the dress exterior and the comfort sneaker. Rockport footwear is in this in-between catagory.

As the SMU line getting larger season by season, I did have the opportunity working on brand new silhouettes from scratches especially in women’s category.

For example, I don’t have access to higher grade of leather, well, they are just too expensive. Synthetic leather and leather coating PU are my main materials of choices. I often build fresh new upper on existing bottom toolings. The shoes I created also can’t have fancy technologies like the inline collections.

My time working for Rockport brand taught me the business of footwear business. Footwear design industry is not just about design even for a footwear designer.

I was believe that as long as I am making good design, people will enjoy them. Now I think differently. Footwear is a business, design is here to serve this business. I will still keep priority in design, well that’s my job, but I will also keep design focused to serve a specific market and business.

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