One hundred years. In the outdoor industry with its ever-changing trends – that’s a long time. Yet for HANWAG, the hiking and mountain boot manufacturer, one question has remained a central theme throughout: What makes a really good outdoor boot?

The question has helped shape HANWAG from the start. It has changed it and made it global. From its origins as a small workshop in a modest village northwest of Munich, HANWAG has grown over the decades. Not meteorically or dramatically, as might be required of modern companies. Instead, it has grown slowly, solidly – and consistently.

Haste and fast-paced development was never HANWAG’s path. Not with its boots, not with its employees, nor with its company philosophy. In the first 83 years of its existence, it had just two directors: The company founder Hans Wagner, who was a third-generation shoemaker, and his nephew, Josef Wagner. The company is now far from a small workshop, but still remains a genuine, expert shoemaker. Talk to present and past employees and you quickly sense how the question of what makes good footwear still influences and shapes HANWAG’s thinking and its people to this day.