Boots not brogues: RM Williams takes on the best of Britain

It’s enough to bring a tear to the crinkled eyes of a leather-skinned Australian farmer. A visitor to the new London flagship of RM Williams can peruse more boots than the blow-ins at stores in Melbourne and Sydney.

As part of an aggressive expansion into the United Kingdom, the latest RM Williams outpost on Jermyn Street, St James, which opened on Friday with 73 boot options, is within strolling distance of King Charles and Prince William’s preferred shoemaker Crockett & Jones. Has the outfitter of the outback traded red dust for blue blood?

“We have the immense privilege that in Australia almost every child comes out of the womb knowing the brand,” says John Hartman, chief executive officer of Tattarang, the private investment vehicle for billionaires Andrew Forrest and Nicola Forrest. Tattarang acquired RM Williams in 2020 for $190 million.

“We don’t have that luxury in the UK.”

“At a strategic level, with London a global centre for fashion and influence, being on one of the world’s most famous menswear streets makes sense. It’s about introducing the market to the boot.”

Following store openings in Bath and Edinburgh, the Jermyn Street flagship is RM Williams’ seventh store in the UK. The eighth location is in affluent Guildford.

“It makes sense to have as many of the boots available as possible, especially with strong interest from the London customers in the exotic skins,” says Hartman, who favours the $5499 Craftsman Crocodile boots, a significant step up from the standard $699 leather version.

Percy Street – a holding entity for RM Williams, Akubra and a number of other Forrest family enterprises, owned by Tattarang and taking its name from RM’s original address in Adelaide – reported revenues of $324 million in the year to June 29, up from $292.2 million in 2024. In 2020, sales at RM Williams were about $152 million.

Sales in Australia rose from $252 million to $281 million, while overseas revenues increased from $37 million to about $40 million.

“We are already seeing green shoots in the UK with the stores performing better than expected and over time and with increased attention, can expect to develop a $100 million market,” Hartman says.

With eyes on other UK locations, Hartman is willing to wait, having learnt the advantage of patience before taking on the oxfords and brogues of Jermyn Street.

“This is the next exciting milestone of growth that we are setting out on, and it’s symbolic for me,” Hartman says. “We celebrated five years of ownership last year, when we focused on getting the business match fit and taking advantage of the opportunities in the Australian and New Zealand markets that saw the business double.”

Part of the preparation for the battle for British feet was increasing production capabilities by 90 per cent since acquiring the brand, by investing in a new 20,000 square metre facility in Salisbury, South Australia, which opened in October.

This followed the $8 million investment in a dedicated space for the production of women’s boots launched by Nicola Forrest in 2024, just a short trip from the Percy Street address woven into the tabs of each boot.

Hartman and RM Williams chief executive Paul Grossman, a former Nike executive, are counting on the brand’s heritage, from 1932, and quality to resonate with international customers.

“It’s something that we have focused on since Tattarang bought RM Williams back from LVMH,” Hartman says. L Catterton, the private investment arm of LVMH, put RM Williams up for sale in 2019 with a reported valuation of $500 million, after five years of ownership.

“We felt that with the Australian heritage of our owners we understand what the brand stood for instead of the way LVMH misinterpreted it and went down a luxury path. We pulled it back to a heritage space.”

Despite the new rarefied surroundings in swanky SW1, “luxury” is rarely uttered by the RM Williams team, and when it is, it’s spat out like a stray fly.

“For us heritage feels like where the brand belongs even though our quality goes head-to-head with luxury brands,” Hartman says.

Other heritage labels are exploring offshore production. German footwear brand Birkenstock is opening a factory in Portugal for components (all footbeds are still produced in German factories), but Hartman is adamant that RM Williams boot production will stay in Australia.

“We will always make our boots proudly in Salisbury and Adelaide. I can say that for sure. We are always proud to say ‘Made in Australia’.”

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