LV x Timberland, Meet Your Successor: Fendi x Red Wing

A new development in the High Fashion x Workwear chronicles has arrived: Fendi x Red Wing. 

Fendi models walked the Spring/Summer 2025 runway wearing boots from Red Wing, an over 100-year-old maker of American workwear. Specifically, the Heritage Moc Toe Boot, Red Wing’s most iconic model, was upgraded with Fendi’s luxurious leather and monogram branding. 

The Fendi x Red Wing boots were in turn classic, rugged, and according to Fendi’s creative director, Kim Jones, made for “a real woman.”

The Fendi x Red Wing boots also brought back memories of a big moment from a recent round of fashion shows (a moment created by Jones’ former employer, no less). 

For Fall/Winter 2024, Louis Vuitton tapped Timberland, a work boot brand with a near-identical history to that of Red Wing, and it created a frenzy that was hard to escape. 

Louis Vuitton x Timberland was immediately omnipresent once Pharrell began teasing it prior to his second LV show: These big yellow boots with LV monogram prints seemed to pop up every time I opened Instagram. 

Fendi x Red Wing is the spiritual successor to LV’s wildly-expensive Timberland boot, in that it’s another another (presumably) wildly-expensive workwear boot overseen by an LVMH fashion house.

However, instead of LV repeatedly printed across its upper or tongue, there’s Fendi’s monogram woven into the lateral side of these American-made work shoes. Plus, there’s more a longstanding backstory: Red Wing has a relationship with Fendi dating back to the 1950s, according to the luxury label’s press release. What exactly is their relationship? Unclear.

The high fashion appropriation of blue-collar uniforms hit an all-time high during the Fall/Winter 2024 shows when a constant string of Carhartt dupes hit the runway. But the streak clearly ain’t over.