EXCLUSIVE: Moon Boot Launches the Park Sneaker as It Looks to Diversify Product Mix

Moon Boot is stepping off the slopes and onto city streets this fall with the launch of its first ambidextrous sneaker model.

Called the Park Icon sneaker, the silhouette features some of the company’s signature design details seen in its range of boots but remixes them into a chunky and contemporary shoe.

With the Park Icon, the lacing is the same as the iconic Moon Boot, but the design is that of a slip-on sneaker. The shoe is available in black, pink, blue, cream and elephant gray colorways with a white sole and laces.

For Allegra Benini, head of marketing at Moon Boot, the inception of the shoe came as a result of seeing the brand outside of snowy environments. “We created the Park partly because we noticed more people wearing our boots, which is technically a snowshoe, in the city streets,” Benini told FN in an interview.

“In a way, the community has anticipated our product development,” Mirko Massignan, general manager of Moon Boot, added in a joint interview with Benini. “Our customers were more ready than us to bring the brand from the mountain to the city. This is kind of what led us to really start thinking about how to develop a product that could suit that demand.”

In addition to the Park Icon, Moon Boot has also introduced the Park Soft, which presents a more minimal, quilted lace-free look. Here glacial nylon colors take center stage, but are sided by sunrise, moonrise and flower prints – featured also in the Icon boot range, and more wintery options with suede and felt uppers.

The collection also includes the Park Sneaker Boot, a mountain boot with a more street and urban design. The unisex adult range retails between $175 and $225.

The Park collection has also been designed for kids as well. European sizes 27 to 38 are available in the Junior Park Icon models, inspired by the adult silhouette. The collection is completed by the Junior Park Boot and the Junior Park Strap Boot, which offers a practical strap fastening suitable for children of all ages. The kids range retails between $135 and $165.

This launch comes three years after Massignan and Benini joined the footwear company. Since the very start, the duo have worked together on bringing the brand back to the forefront of culture, something they are touting with this launch. “We have been able to build, within three years, a worldwide community around Moon Boots,” Massignan said. “We have U.S. celebrities wearing our shoes, K-Pop stars, European celebrities and South American celebrities all starting to endorse and enjoy the brand.”

But for now, the Park collection is the focus of the company’s marketing efforts. “From now through November we will be very much focused on the Park before our core winter season really takes off,” Massignan said. “We’ll have all sorts of activations around social media that we believe are being closer to the generation that we want to speak to with this product. We’re also looking at bringing the element into the gaming world in order to start direct dialog with this community.”