UGG

UGG

Brian Smith, an Australian surfer studying business at UCLA, founded Ugg Imports in Santa Monica in 1978 with Doug Jensen, betting that the sheepskin boots Australians wore after cold surf sessions could find an American market. The company sold just 28 pairs its first season, and Smith kept building the brand himself, including selling boots out of the back of his van at Malibu, before selling it to Deckers Outdoor Corporation in 1995.

Shoes

The Classic Boot is still the reference point for everything UGG makes, a twin-faced sheepskin design that Brian Smith built the entire company around after noticing Southern California surfers had no equivalent to what he grew up wearing in Australia. Early retailers turned him down more than a hundred times before the idea caught on. What's shown here traces directly back to that original silhouette.

More Shoes

A second wall of shoes shows how far the brand has stretched a single founding idea, warm sheepskin footwear, into a much broader range since Deckers Outdoor Corporation acquired it in 1995. The company Smith started with a modest investment from family friends is now a global name, but the throughline is still comfort over anything else. These pairs reflect that expansion.

Our honest take

UGG's origin story is a genuinely scrappy one, a surfer selling boots from a van at Malibu after being rejected by shop after shop, and that persistence is arguably a better story than the brand's more recent celebrity-driven fame. It's strongest when it leans into the sheepskin comfort premise Smith actually built the company on rather than treating itself as a general lifestyle label. This edit is a solid entry point for people who want the classics first.