The History of UGG Boots



 

Comfort, Celebrity, and Contoversy

Ugg boots have been favorites of rural folk throughout history. The availability of materials - ie: sheepskin and fleece - made it easy to manufacture these warm all-weather boots. Of course the folk designs were much more crude and simple than our modern boots, and they lacked todays synthetic soles, which were often made of more sheepskin and fur.

These simple boots soon came to the attention of military aviators during world war one and two. The pilots were looking for ways to help keep their feet warm in the non-pressurized cockpits of early planes. Sometimes called "fugg" boots, they did indeed keep their feet warm regardless of how funny they looked.

As the story goes because of the large amount of sheep and sheep ranchers in this style of boot was also made down under. Then, somehow, in the 1950's and 60's due to the great natural surfing grounds on the n beaches these boots made their way onto the feet of the local surfers. Because of the thermostatic properties of fleece these boots kept the surfers feet dry and warm. Soon, globe-trotting surfers from down under had spread the Ugg boot to surfing beaches around the world. It soon became a "cult fashion" on the beaches of southern California.

During the mid to late seventies this fashion caught on with the rest of California and would soon infect the entire world thanks to Deckers Outdoor Corporation. Deckers began to manufacture "UGG" boots with synthetic soles and offered pleasing colors and tweaks on the classic style of Uggs. Thanks to their marketing department UGG boots from Deckers Outdoor Corporation soon adorned the feet of many people in Hollywood. One of the most noteable of these was Pamela Anderson, the star of Baywatch. She wore her boots around the set during the most poular run of the show sending the noteriety and appeal of the UGG brand into the stratosphere.

Since that time the brand has only grown. Appearing in paparazzi photographs adorning the feet of stars and putting themselves in the spotlight again and again. The UGG brand now produces not only boots, but shoes, clogs, slippers, and sandals. Every season UGG and the Deckers Outdoor Corporation brings something new to the brand with sophisticated new styles and an ever changing pallette of colors.

Contoversy
Sometimes when discussing UGGs you may hear mention of the controversy of the name. In case you don't know, here's the story. When UGG boots were first "discovered" in the 70's the term UGGs had a broad meaning that encompassed any of the myriad of different styles of sheepskin, fleece-lined boots. They were mostly made by small businesses, or home-made by sheep ranchers or surfers. All that changed though when Deckers Outdoor Corporation got a hold of it.

In all truthfulness Deckers did put a lot of work into defining the name of UGG as a brand. It was the dissimation of the name through Hollywood and across the surfing world that really made UGGs a household name. Perhaps in time someone else would have taken the style to the next level, or the popularity could have grown naturally, but it didn't. Deckers had put substantial marketing resources into popularizing the term UGG boots and they felt that it was in their best interests that the term be restricted to being used for their products only.

So it was that Deckers filed worldwide copyright claims on the term UGG, UGGs, and UGG Boots, seeking to gain the right to keep other businesses from using the term to describe their products. The community, especially surfers and ns were instantly up in arms about it. What gave deckers the right to copyright the word UGGs? It had been in popular use for years. Copyrighting UGG boots was like copyrighting "cowboy" boots. UGG was a general style of boot, not a brand name, at least that was the reasoning. The courts thought differently though, granting international copyright on UGG to Deckers Outdoor Corporation. After which Deckers issued a ton of cease and desist orders to all the manufacturers and dealers of "UGG" boots around the globe.

Of course there were many who instantly began the appeal process to try and get Deckers copyright reversed, and that sparked off a huge round of seemingly underhanded moves by Deckers. They even went so far as to buy up a bunch of domain names on the world wide web that their competition might use. The most relevent case was that of their main competitor, uggs-n-rugs. In fact, to this day if you visit uggsnrugs.com you will find a website owned by Deckers that profuses the illegality of using the term UGG for anything other than official "UGG " footwear from Deckers Outdoor Corporation.

As the years have gone on though, some of the appeals have actually won out. for example has reversed it's decision on Deckers copyright claim, allowing manufacturers and business to once again use the term to describe sheepskin boots other than those manufactured by Deckers. It's interesting that no one else has come forward to lay claim to the name besides Deckers. All the other claimants want only to be able to use the term, and even allow others to use the term, for descriptive reasons, saying it belongs not just to one company, but to the public to be used as they see fit. Of course the appeal itself is also under appeal by Deckers to try and regain their copyright on the term in . Will wonders never cease? Maybe, but lawsuits probably won't.