Timberland Offering Consumers Chance To Design Shoes
Barbara Schneider-Levy
Senior Editor, Men's and Comfort
Timberland is channeling the designer in everyone.
The company is turning to consumers globally to help design its latest collection — the Craftletic — thorough a partnership with crowd sourcing apparel company, Betabrand. Timberland is the first major footwear brand to partner with Betabrand.
“Partnering with Betabrand gives Timberland the opportunity to engage consumers in a dialogue in a truly innovative way and test new design concepts in real-time from their infancy through to creation,” said Jay Steere, senior director Timberland Innovation Lead. “Every consumer has the ability to be a part of this process, not only contributing to Timberland’s style conversation by co-creating the Craftletics collection, but also to see which boot consumers are most interested in buying. We’re excited to see which concept wins.”
From now until March 17, consumers can vote on one of three unisex trend concepts they would like to see come to market, weighing in on design elements from materials, color and even gender. The categories include Urbanization, Neorganic and Modern Nomad — each an intersection of craftsmanship and athletic ease-of-wear. Timberland’s internal design collective sketched the shape and structure of 14 styles across three unisex boot categories.
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The prototype of the winning style will be created and available for crowdfunding on May 13. Consumers will be asked to bid on the footwear they helped create and within a short window, data will determine if the chose design has enough demand to be produced. The final collection will hit market in fall 2016 to Betabrand shoppers and through select Timberland distribution channels.
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