Pop culture meets subculture – with a twist. That’s Rocket Dog.
Fierce and funny. Fast and fetching. Flirty and footloose (yes, as in the movie). Occasionally fluffy.
Serving fashion-forward teens, eclectic city-dwellers and coastal casualistas who surf a wave as readily as they do the Web, Rocket Dog creates daring style combinations that play like epic, madcap love stories: librarian lace-ups meet sex-bomb spike heels. Demure scotch plaid meets new-wave chunk. Sturdy topsider meets punk-rock patent. Practical tweed flat meets swashbuckling samurai sash. Scaled-down Wellie meets fanciful fauna print. Opposites attract; fireworks ensue.
Rocket Dog shoes don’t blend in with the well-heeled pack – those nondescript breeds with their tails between their legs. Rocket Dogs bark.
We’re mad shoe scientists. We comb the planet for the most inspired ingredients and splice them together in our design laboratory. The DNA of our creations can be traced to Tokyo malls, New York punk clubs, Orange County beach barbecues, Hong Kong streetcorners and our own neon-colored, sci-fi dreams.
The Rocket Dog girl? She’s style-conscious but not a fashion slave. Confident and cool, but not afraid to show her goofy side. She likes comfort but isn’t conservative. She’ll work a sporty look – and hit the slopes or the water with her friends – but she doesn’t live at the gym. She watches reality TV but probably won’t admit it. And she loves her Rocket Dog shoes – she collects them, catalogues them, blogs about them and even makes movies about them.
And the Rocket Dog guy? He’s her boyfriend.
You can find Rocket Dog shoes at fine U.S. department and specialty stores. Collections include sandals, casual shoes, sneaks and boots; prices range from $20-$100.
The Story of Rocket Dog
It all began with a cork-bottom sandal.
The year was 1997. Rocket Dog’s first charismatic pup of a shoe scampered onto the scene and became the darling of San Francisco, South Beach and L.A. – the number one sandal of the season and the first issue of a champion litter. Next came a boundary-breaking all-rubber sandal, dubbed “Horny Corner” in honor of a legendary surf spot in The O.C.’s Huntington Beach; it too was soon the toast of the coast.
The brand behind these suddenly ubiquitous shoes? It was sired by breeders with more than 40 years’ experience designing and marketing footwear, and named (with a kinetic canine logo to match) for the head Dog whisperer’s fleet-footed, beachcombing pooch, Max, known far and wide for his stunning velocity. He was an apt mascot for a new breed of shoe company: one that took off like a shot, has never stopped moving, and that – once it sets a goal – is like a dog with a bone.
RD quickly became an international brand, extending its paws into Central America, Europe, Australia and parts of the Middle East, among other markets. The company launched its men’s line in 2004, and a kids’ line shortly thereafter.
Our “brain lab” hit a new plateau with their line of vulcanized shoes, which showcased a similarly funky-femme sensibility. The design team has gone on to mutate an array of familiar shoe categories. Dress dogs, casual dogs, school dogs – they all have a twist, from sly prints sewn under the tongue or artfully distressed surfaces to “toybox” charms attached directly to the top of the shoe.
When we want to do our version of a popular style, we study it from every angle and then add our DNA. Rocket Dogs need to be cute, comfortable and little bit loud. Do we dig rockabilly-pinup audacity, modern lines with a bit of Asian-styled panache, futuristic flavor with old-school sass, and American goth-girl punk? You bet. But Rocket Dog’s designers constantly push themselves outside their comfort zones, striving to reinvent traditional shoe styles in their own irreverent image.
We design with a certain kind of customer in mind: young, hip, nonconformist, saucy, funny and experimental. She might be 19 years old, or 25. Or 70, for that matter – some people just refuse to grow up, and those are our kind of people.
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