Our story
Setting the Stage
The story of Hertwill started in 2020 with a small shoe factory in southern Estonia. The factory has made great boots for over 75 years, and their partners included Rossignol, Dr. Martens and different NATO armies. But you couldn’t buy their shoes online, which made no sense to us.
After several meetings with the factory owners, in December 2020, we launched an online store Saapavabrik (Boot Factory), making those boots available online. The response was instant and positive.
Not long after, we discovered a small studio in Tartu, Estonia, that makes incredible hiking and mountain climbing bags. In fact, the greatest Estonian mountaineer Alar Sikk uses their bags. And as with the shoe factory, their bags weren’t available online – you had to go to their studio to buy one.