Plus they’re easy to get in and out of and don’t take a long time to lace up. I’m just about 5’6″ and find that the 6″ height is perfect on my legs. Here’s a super quick guide to what Bean Boots you should get: Don’t wait. In a couple of weeks, people are going to start to realize the temps are dropping, and everyone will make a mad dash for LL Bean! And that’s when the back orders start. This year, consumers continued to order the boots throughout the off-season, and the company said it didn't have any downtime to stockpile inventory.I waited until after Labor Day for this post, and I don’t want you to think I am sounding the alarm or anything, but… if you want a pair of Bean Boots for this fall or winter, now is the time to get one. The company expects to produce about 600,000 boots next year with the new machines and workers, if demand continues to go up.īoots are often shipped months after consumers place an order, and some styles are currently unavailable until late February, according to the L.L.Bean website. This year, the main factory and another in Lewiston are set to produce 510,000 pairs, about 60,000 more than in 2014. Demand surged last year, and the company had fallen behind on 100,000 orders by December. That year, the company toured the country in a 13-foot-high and 20-foot-long "bootmobile," a Bean Boot on wheels.Ĭertain styles and sizes of Bean Boots have sold out every year since 2011, when L.L.Bean factory workers put together 275,000 pairs. Recent harsh winters in the Northeast and an L.L.Bean marketing campaign to celebrate its 100th year in 2012Īdded to the boot's popularity. Thousands of young woman at campuses across the country sport the boots over leggings or skinny jeans, often with a pair of wool socks peeking out of the top. Thanks to the emergence of "retro" and "lumberjack chic" fashion, a generation of twentysomethings and teens are rediscovering the rubber toe duck boots their grandparents made popular decades ago. It has hired 200 additional bootmakers in the last two years to increase production and plans to hire at least 45 more by September. The company is awaiting an order of 55 stitching machines and leather cutters, a cost of about $800,000. In May, L.L.Bean added a second $1.2 million injection-molding machine that produces the rubber sole of the boots. "L.L.Bean is a great quality product," Paone said, serious and soft-spoken. A stitch veers a few millimeters off its line, and he tosses a perfectly functional pair of the most sought-after boots in the country into a bin full of rejects. Nearby, 22-year L.L.Bean veteran Mary Jo Tufts dunks a waterproof liner into a tub of liquid and searches for leaks.Īt the end of the line, Steve Paone inspects each boot before it is shipped. In the factory in Brunswick, Linda Brown sits at a sewing machine and stitches smooth pieces of tan leather to form the back of the trademark Bean Boot. "There are people who would die to be in their shoes." "It's very successful because it tells the consumer that you can't wait to buy it tomorrow, you have to buy it today," said Michael Silverstein, a senior partner at Boston Consulting Group. The "Made in America" label adds cachet, and the scarcity of the boot continues to increase its popularity. By slowly ramping up manufacturing, the company avoids creating a surplus that might swamp demand and force price markdowns. "We would never do that."Īnalysts say that L.L.Bean's strategy is financially responsible and shrewd. Founder Leon Leonwood Bean invented the shoe in Maine - by stitching the bottom of a rubber workman's boot to a leather upper to keep his feet dry on hunting trips - and it will always be made by L.L.Bean employees in Maine, he said. L.L.Bean could outsource thousands of boots to catch up or move production to Asia, where most US brands make shoes and boots because the manufacturing costs are cheaper. Last year, it got a boost from none other than the famed Spanish high heel designer Manolo Blahnik - he of "Sex and the City" fame - who said he needed a pair to trudge through the slushy streets during New York Fashion Week. The trend can be traced loosely back to 2012 ,when InStyle, Shape, Glamour, Us Weekly, and The Wall Street Journal wrote about the boot, some naming the Bean Boot the "it" shoe of the season.
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