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RM Williams, the Australian bootmaker and outback wear company, is targeting Britain’s affluent regions as part of its billionaire owner’s plan to transform the company into a stronger international fashion brand.
The company, which was founded in 1932 by bushman Reginald Murray Williams as a leather goods business, will open a store in Marlow in Buckinghamshire this week and another in Cambridge in December as part of a push into the UK regions.
It has also strengthened its ties with retailers in the country and its boots and apparel will feature prominently on the shelves of department stores Selfridges and Harrods, which will stock crocodile-skin boots that sell for A$5,000 a pair, this month.
The Australian company’s Chelsea boots are one of the most recognisable products produced in the country. Boris Johnson name-checked RM Williams alongside Vegemite spread and Tim Tam biscuits when he announced a free trade agreement between the UK and Australia in 2021.
RM Williams has long had international ambitions having opened its first UK store in Knightsbridge in 1989. It now has two shops in London. A major international expansion into retail was planned when it was under the ownership of L Catterton, the private equity investor backed by luxury goods company LVMH.
However, the company was sold four years ago to Tattarang, the family office of billionaire iron ore magnate Andrew Forrest and his now estranged wife, Nicola, who have invested in revamping the heritage brand’s range and doubling its production capacity. Tattarang also owns Akubra hats, another heritage Australian brand, and has forged closer links between the milliner and RM Williams.
RM Williams’s revenue has grown 82 per cent to about A$300mn a year since the Tattarang takeover according to the company.
Paul Grosmann, chief executive of RM Williams, said that international expansion had previously been inhibited by production constraints. “We struggled in the past to meet demand,” he said, adding that it had added 350 staff and doubled the size of its Adelaide facility since the Tattarang takeover.
He added that RM Williams would sit alongside other heritage brands such as Barbour that appeal to both urban professionals and people in the countryside. “It does cross over,” he said of the company’s ability to sell boots — which retail for hundreds of dollars a pair — to stockbrokers in its home market despite its roots in rugged workwear.
Grosmann, who ran Nike’s stores in China before joining RM Williams, said that the company intended to “properly embed ourselves in the UK market” before “springboarding” into other markets “when the time is right”.
Fans of the boots include Cillian Murphy, the actor who wore a pair to an Oppenheimer preview, singer James Taylor, who visited the company’s Adelaide workshop while on tour this year, and Lex Greensill who was pictured wearing the boots in the desert alongside David Cameron.
Geetanjali Saluja, a senior lecturer at University of Technology Sydney’s Business School, said that Australian brands including Aesop, the cosmetics company owned by L’Oréal, women’s fashion label Zimmerman, which is majority owned by Advent, and sleepwear company Peter Alexander had all broken through overseas partly by playing to their Australian heritage.
Saluja said that RM Williams would use the wider retail presence in the UK to help refine its position as a “status symbol” for certain buyers. “They’re a good quality product but it’s not clear where they stand as a brand,” she said referring to its strategy under previous owners.
Grosmann said that the UK expansion was “putting a lot on the line” for the 92-year-old company as it revived its international plans. “It’s a delicate line to walk — to become globally relevant while staying true to your roots,” he said.
