Sanuli Molligoda
The Roots of Roots were successful Detroit entrepreneurs,
Clothing retailer Roots Canada Ltd.--
known universally simply as "Roots"--
is a lifestyle marketer inspired by the
northern summer camp reminiscences
of founders Don Green and Michael
Budman.  Roots remains a family
business: Green's wife, Denyse
Tremblay, was one of the company's
first salespersons; Budman's wife,
Diane Bald, designs the company's
retail stores. The company is unique in
its ability to handle small runs of
custom orders. Its leather business
and the fact that nearly all of its
products are made in Canada also set
it apart.  Roots has about 175 stores,
almost 60 of them in Asia, and its
famous clothing has been worn by
heads of state, including former
President Bill Clinton and Prince
Charles, as well as numerous athletes
and entertainers.  emphasize the "Roots Shoe" as a
Although they became famous
exploiting the essence of Canadian
style, both Don Green's and Michael
Budman's roots are in Detroit. Both
Budman and Green had fallen in love
with Canada while camping at
Algonquin Park's Camp Tamakwa;
they moved to Toronto in the late
1960s. In addition, both their fathers
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giving their future business some
hereditary grounding.  borrowed from Green's father provided
The two well-off boys, looking for
ways to extend their idyllic existence
north of the border, decided to get in
on the Earth Shoe craze. Anna Kalso,
a Dane, had designed the shoe with a
heel lower than the toe to mirror the
barefoot posture she admired in
Brazilian natives. By 1970, the Earth
Shoe was a counterculture footwear
smash.  After some discussions about
acquiring rights to distribute the Earth
Shoe in Canada, Budman and Green
began to design their own negative
heel shoe. Theirs had a milder incline
and less radical design. Geoff Pevere,
the "pop culture guru" who published
a book-length account of the Roots
story in 1998, said the homey shoes
capitalized on "anti-fashion."  around the block and signing waiting
Bar mitzvah money and $15,000
start-up capital for the venture.
Methodically searching for
manufacturers through the Yellow
Pages, Budman and Green were
turned down by footwear giant Bata
but soon found a winner.  The Boa
Shoe Company was run by a Polish
family that had once made boots for
Czar Nicholas II. Jan Kowalewski and
sons Henry, Richard, Stanley, and Karl
agreed to make 120 pairs of the new
shoes for Budman and Green, despite
the fact that the two hipsters had
brought a dog to their inaugural
meeting. 
Budman and Green then rented an
800-square-foot store on Yonge Street
in Toronto for $280 a month. They
decided on the name "Roots" to
connection to the earth. The
trademark logo soon was created, with
a beaver borrowed from the Camp
Tamakwa crest. The store moved
seven pairs of the shoes, priced at $35
each, on opening day, August 15,
1973.  After another few weeks of
modest sales, the Roots team
suddenly found people cueing up

lists to get a pair of the hot shoes.
Soon People magazine would call it
"the Gucci shoe of the crunchy granola
set." The firm opened 75 stores
between 1973 and 1975.  heel shoes to its offerings, as well as
In the next couple of years, Budman
and Green created a firestorm of
publicity that made Roots a household
word in Canada. They started by
sending free pairs to celebrities such
as Paul McCartney, Cher, Elton John,
and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau. Roots garnered
immeasurable exposure when these
famous feet carried the shoes into the
national press. The company founders
also appeared in Roots advertising,
further stretching their promotional
dollars.  Roots sold sweatshirts in the 1980s--a
According to Pevere, Roots was worth
a million dollars within six months.
Budman and Green soon signed an
exclusive agreement with their
supplier that would last at least
another 25 years; within a year the
Kowalewski family was making 2,000
pairs of Roots footwear a week.  later, Japan would be the only
Unlike the Earth Shoe, advertising for
the Roots Shoe was low on claims of
specific therapeutic benefits regarding
its negative heel. Comfort, style, and
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craftsmanship were its key selling
points. Following the advice of an
early designer, Robert Burns, the firm
also had begun adding conventional
clothes and other items made of
leather. Roots began outfitting sports
teams beginning with the Blue Jays in
1977, opening another enduring line
of business.  After excitement over the first shoes
All of these factors helped cushion the
company after the floor fell out of the
negative heel fad in 1976. Fortunately,
European sales were only just
beginning to boom. (Twenty years
surviving market for the company's
negative heel shoes.) A Detroit doctor
was credited with issuing the
contravening medical opinion that
signalled the end of the craze.  appealed not only to baby boomers'
Sanuli Molligoda
In 1979, a New Jersey manufacturing
company also named Roots sued
Budman and Green for trademark
infringement. The lawsuit kept Roots
Canada products out of the United
States for nine years and ultimately
cost the company $1 million. 
had died down, Roots moved on to its
true business--selling the nostalgia of
summer camp to baby boomers.
These dreams were embroidered on
sweatshirts, hats, and other
accessories, adorned with patches
touting the virtues of the great
Canadian wilderness in the bonding
language of athletics. Most important,
decade that emphasized physical
fitness as never before.  After a forced
retreat from the American market,
Roots re-entered the United States in
1988. 
Launched in 1975, the Roots Beaver
Athletic sweatshirt--or "RBA" in
company lingo--sold modestly until
1985, when it exploded. More than a
million RBAs were produced by early
1990. Inspired by the uniforms of
collegiate athletes, the sweatshirt

health consciousness, but their desire
to belong to teams, wrote Pevere.
During the late 1980s, "We went from
being a shoe company to a clothing
company to a lifestyle company to a
global company," Roots Vice-President
Marshall Myles told a textiles industry
trade magazine.  of world-class television shows,
A global recession impacted the
company in the early 1990s; however,
profits continued to rise after 1991.  the Opera, as well as rock tours for
Some of the ventures that did not
work out for the company included a
Paris-based fashion magazine and an
aborted Colorado ski resort. There was
still plenty of good news otherwise.
Revenues approached $100 million
annually in 1992.  access to numerous celebrities for
One of Don Green's buddies from
Camp Tamakwa, Mike Binder,
produced a movie about his
reminiscences there for Disney in
1993. The film, called “Indian
Summer”, featured Roots gear
prominently, and Roots advertising
made the most of the connection. As
Geoff Pevere noted, the Disney/Roots
collaboration was appropriate, for both
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companies were dedicated to the myth
of never growing up.   feet. In contrast to other lifestyle
As the movie and television industry in
Toronto grew, Roots took to producing
customized clothing for the industry.
This ultimately extended to a variety
The Roots of Roots
movies, and plays produced
elsewhere, including Forrest Gump,
Seinfeld, Pulp Fiction, and Phantom of
the likes of Janet Jackson. The large
number of Canadian actors, beginning
with Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner
(one of Green's Tamakwa camping
buddies) on the cast of Saturday Night
Live, already had given Roots easy
years. For example, basketball
superstar and Nike spokesman Michael
Jordan wore a Roots sweatshirt while
hosting the show.  O'Donnell. Actor Robin Williams even
By 1997, there were 95 Roots outlets
across Canada, six in the United
States, and 15 franchises in Asia. The
company had 1,000 employees; 225 of
them worked at its leather goods
factory, still run by the Kowalewski
Sanuli Molligoda
family, which measured 65,000 square
brands such as Nike and The Gap, 95
percent of the company's wares were
made in Canada. 
Roots outfitted the Canadian teams for
the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano,
Japan. The distinctive jackets they
created were wildly popular, as was
the poorboy hat, a kind of oversized
beret. Roots also signed endorsement
deals with Olympic medal athletes
including skater Elvis Stojko.  It took
two years for Budman and Green to
secure the Olympic uniform contract,
but the results were enduring. After
the Nagano Olympics, a number of
famous figures were seen wearing
Roots duds, including Prince Charles
and President Bill Clinton, singer Sarah
McLachlan, and comedian Rosie
wore a poorboy cap to the Academy
Awards. Green and Budman turned
down an offer to sell half the company
to clothing giant Dylex Limited. 
Roots opened a boutique in the SoHo
district of Manhattan in June 1998.
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Later that summer, Ford Motor
Company rolled out its Roots Explorer
SUV in Canada, which was equipped
with a custom storage bag produced
by Roots. 

Marshall Myles, a Roots veteran of 25

years, was appointed president and
CEO in December 2000. Three months
earlier, designer Tu Ly had been
picked as the company's creative
director.   In 2000, the Wall Street
Journal reported the firm was planning
a five-year, $70 million expansion
drive in the United States and Europe.
In the works were 25 outlets at resorts
such as Vail, Colorado. Other stores
were planned as part of a joint
venture with an as yet unnamed
partner. 

Roots currently have more than 2,000

employees throughout Canada. The
Company is based in Toronto, Ontario,
and had estimated sales of about $300
million in 2003. Besides its retail and
online operations, Roots products can
be purchased at, Modell's Sporting
Goods in the U.S., Taiwan (12 stores).