LOWA History

The history of a company steeped in tradition

The year of 2023 marks a milestone in LOWA’s history. The shoemaker is celebrating its 100th anniversary. It is the perfect time to look back over the last 100 years and bring the company’s history to life.

Passion Leads to Perfection

Lorenz’s work laid the foundation for the future successes of the company. To him, a product was not finished until it fit and func­tioned perfectly. He used the very best leather that the region had to offer and constructed stable uppers and soles. The result was durable and timeless high-quality shoes. The high quality of the handicraft in the Norwegian welt-stitched shoes – a manu­fac­turing process that stemmed from the mountains – required Lorenz Wagner to expand his oper­ations in the late 1920s. The first factory buildings were built for this purpose in 1930 and 1931. The foundation for further success was laid with Alpine boots for mountain infantry and lace-up ski boots. At this time, Sepp Lederer, a future son-in-law and company heir, joined the company as an apprentice.

Group of lowa employees in the 1920s

1929 – 1953

Hard Times

During the 1930s and 1940s, dramatic events led to far-reaching global economic troubles. The Great Depression paralyzed the United States from 1929 to1941 and led indirectly to a global recession that lasted roughly 12 years. World War II also broke out in 1939.

But Lorenz Wagner still managed to navigate his company through the difficult times. But the impact of the Korean crisis severely shook the company in 1949 and 1950. As a result of the crisis, the price of material jumped by up to 50 percent – leather became a target of spec­u­lators. The rising costs increased the expense of production while climbing product prices stifled demand. To remain in operation at all, LOWA had to pay high prices for materials. When prices suddenly fell as the company was still trying to pay off older bills, the company became insolvent virtually over night. When Lorenz Wagner died in 1953, LOWA hit the lowest point of its nearly 100 year history.

1955 – 1988

The Second Generation

In 1955, Wagner’s daughter Berti and her husband, Josef “Sepp” Lederer, took over the company. He had joined the company in 1931 as an apprentice. He expanded the product range step by step in a reflection of the founder’s very own philosophy.

LOWA created a sensation in 1957 when it was allowed to provide equipment for the Karakorum Expedition. Fritz Winter­steller, Marcus Schmuck, Kurt Diem­berger of Salzburg and Hermann Buhl of Tyrol reached the summit of the 8,047m Broad Peak on 9 June 1957 during this expedition. From this time onwards, spon­sorship of exped­itions and athletes was a permanent aspect of the LOWA strategy – and remains one to this very day. One successful expedition followed another, creating oppor­tunities to highlight the quality of LOWA products and add new innov­ations to product devel­opment. In the years that have passed since then, countless climbs in the Alps and exped­itions to the most remote corners of the world have been added to the list.

 

New tech­no­logies bring success

In 1970, Berti and Sepp recognized the signs of the times and began to invest in new plastic tech­nology, tech­niques that enabled more and more innovative exclamation points to be created. Soon after the decision was taken, one of the first poly­urethane injection moulding machines was put into operation. The first vulcanized rubber soles – a ground-breaking innovation – was then introduced: It combined 100-percent moisture protection, insu­lation from the cold and shape retention into one product.

In the 1980s, the successful company strategy based on continuous innov­ations was continued. In 1982, the “TREKKER” model went on sale and gave birth to the trekking shoe.

1988 – 1996


CONTINUITY AND CHANGE


After 33 years in which Sepp and Berti Lederer reshaped the company by intro­ducing numerous improvements and overcame the company’s low mark in 1950, they passed management of the company to their son Stefan Lederer, the grandson of Lorenz Wagner who led the company in the third generation. Stefan Lederer continued to system­at­ically apply the strategy introduced by his parents by doing such things as developing the LOWA STREET TREKKER.

 

A shoe empire arises
At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, LOWA suffered severe financial setbacks resulting from a series of relatively snow-less winters. As a way of protecting jobs at the company, the Lederer family decided to sell a stake in the company.

In wake of this decision, the company made a mana­gerial change in 1992 that would even­tually take the company to unimagined heights over the next 30 years – Werner Riethmann became managing director and led acquisition nego­ti­ations with the Italian business group Tecnica in 1993. It is a company whose other brands include Nordica, Rollerblade, Blizzard and Moon Boot. LOWA was restructured for the future following the acquisition.

The company underwent a streaming and restruc­turing process. LOWA ski boot division became part of Tecnica as part of this work, a decision that brought LOWA’s ski boot business to an end. The company then focused completely on the hiking and moun­tain­eering boot segments. The inter­na­tion­al­isation of LOWA became a priority as well, a step that was designed to reduce the company’s dependency on its three main markets: Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But Jetzendorf remained the production location in Germany – one of Rieth­mann’s key demands – and also continued to serve as the base of the company’s management team and its research and devel­opment department. Moun­tain­eering and trekking boots continued to be made in Jetzendorf as well. The 15-square-metre shop in which Lorenz Wagner began to develop his shoes had evolved into a modern plant with 7,000 square metres of space. Sepp Lederer and his wife, Berti, were honoured for their life’s work and became honorary pres­idents of the company following the acquisition.

LOWA moved in only one direction in subsequent years: straight upwards. In 1994, a total of 1,750 pairs of shoes were produced every day in Jetzendorf. Addi­tional expansions affecting products, structures and sales markets soon followed. The company’s offices and ware­houses were expanded in subsequent years as well. The “light” hiking boot introduced in 1995 is considered to be the fore­runner of today’s multi­func­tional All Terrain Classic line. In the summer of 1996, LOWA initiated a joint venture in the United States. A Canadian version followed a few months later. The hot-selling items at the time were the models TREKKER and LADY SPORT.