Finding good shoes is easy; finding great shoes isn’t. Thankfully, Pennon’s growing range is like striking gold.
For better or for worse, there are a lot of shoes on the market right now. The choices are endless, almost to the point of feeling overwhelmed by the abundance that’s out there. Sometimes, it’s easier to have one brand that you can count on, trusting that everything in their portfolio will inevitably bang. Enter: Pennon.
Hailing from South Korea and founded by longtime friends and collaborators Nathan and TK (Taehoon Kim), the brand originally gained traction a year or so after it was founded in 2023 with its High Boots. They had all the makings of a great hiker silhouette: a full-grain cowhide upper, a perfect rounded, semi-squared toe shape, a rugged Vibram outsole and the perfect multi-coloured laces – with the choice of a high or low top. And they landed at the perfect moment, when hiking boots were at peak popularity in 2024. Not to mention their hand-crafted quality, construction at the finest footwear factories in South Korea, and surefire references reimagined with modern changes.
Pennon’s popularity snowballed from there. Metal Hook Boat Shoes and the Machina Boots, their answer to the sleek zip boot craze, were also added to its arsenal. The Stray Loafers, a soft-leather, ruched loafer, and the Phat Flipflops joined its offering this year, too. Its offering has grown and expanded, with each subsequent release solidifying its case for being one of the best up-and-comers in the men's footwear space. So much so that their stockists have expanded too, adding Stoy in Denmark and KITH in London, New York and Paris to their resumé.
Now, with the Rober, a woven leather loafer-mule hybrid, set to release next week, we chop it up with the design duo to discuss the pair’s contradictory yet functional dynamic, the hiking boot boom and the collaborations they’ve got in the pipeline.
Tell us about the start of the brand — why did footwear need a brand like Pennon?
TK: Pennon started in 2023, and honestly it began from something quite personal. Nathan and I kept looking for shoes that took heritage construction seriously but still felt right for how we actually dress today — and we couldn't quite find what we had in mind. Rather than wait for someone else to make it, we decided to try building it ourselves. I wouldn't say footwear needed us. There are a lot of people doing beautiful work. We just wanted to add our own voice to it.
What was your background before Pennon?
Nathan: I’ve been making shoes for over twelve years. I trained as a bespoke shoemaker at Stefano Bemer and Gaziano & Girling, and still do bespoke work today alongside my role as Footwear Designer at Pennon.
TK: I came into this with no formal background in footwear at all. What I had was a conviction that we could build a brand and a business that could grow globally, and enough stubbornness to keep going while I learned.
The hiking boots got a lot of attention — did you know they'd shape the brand's trajectory that much?
TK: Honestly, no. We built them because it was the silhouette Nathan and I both wanted to exist and couldn't find. We weren't chasing a trend — we just made the boot we'd want to wear ourselves. The reaction afterwards wasn't something we planned for. It simply confirmed we were making the right thing for the right reason.
What's your process for developing new silhouettes?
TK: It usually starts with something missing from our own rotation — a gap we feel personally. Nathan carves nearly every last by hand, and each one has its own starting point. Sometimes it's an old boot, sometimes a shape neither of us has seen resolved the way we'd want. From there it's a back and forth between construction demands and a sense of where the silhouette should sit visually.
What brands do you look up to?
Nathan: Vans and Mihara Yasuhiro. What Vans did is remarkable — they participated in a culture naturally, enjoyed it, helped build it, and that became their heritage rather than something they manufactured. With Mihara Yasuhiro, I keep returning to the leather shoes from the 2000s collections. He never stayed within the grammar of traditional shoemaking; he kept pushing new forms and ideas. I loved the Mihara Yasuhiro line for PUMA Black Station back in my school days.
TK: Visvim and Yeezy. Visvim's FBT is a moccasin with a sporty Vibram outsole underneath — the reference is obvious, yet nothing like it existed before. The Yeezy Season 3 military boots do the same from another angle: traditional military bones, filtered through the brand's own sensibility into a shape you hadn't seen. I have a real weakness for combinations like that.
Your ‘About’ section on the website reads: "We argue every day. What you see now is what happens when we finally agree" — tell us the story.
TK: Nathan and I have been friends for a long time. We fight about almost everything, and I mean nearly every aspect of building this brand. Nathan is rigorous — he works from principles, and there's a right way to do things that he won't compromise on. I'm the opposite; I go on instinct. So we collide constantly and end up meeting somewhere in the middle. What you're seeing really is what comes out when we finally agree on something.
How important is styling for your campaign shoots? Where do you look for references?
TK: References build up naturally as we look for the vintage originals behind the clothes we actually enjoy wearing now. New designs emerge from that process, and then we work backwards — selecting the pieces that sit well with those designs until the styling comes together. For us, styling is how we visually articulate where Pennon is heading next. It's not decoration on top of the product.
What's your favourite silhouette you've made? What do you wear most?
Nathan: Because I only make what I want at that moment, whatever comes out newest always becomes my favourite. Right now I'm wearing the Stray Loafer and the brown suede engineer boot that drops this fall.
TK: Before summer, most of what I liked wearing leaned workwear, so I was in the Sunken M-43 Boots in black constantly — and I expect to be again this autumn. It's been so hot lately that I've basically lived in the Phat Flipflop.
In such a competitive footwear market, how do you differentiate?
TK: We don't try to compete on being everywhere. We design and produce everything in Seoul. We'd rather tell one honest story — the factory, the people, how a shoe actually gets made — than push out another lookbook. Slowly taking steps.
What are your plans for later this year and beyond?
TK: There's a lot coming — collaborations with brands here in Korea, collaborations with American brands, and a few special projects that are entirely our own. More on all of it soon.
We're also going to be a lot more communicative on our social channels starting in September — the making process, campaign shoots, the materials we work with. There's a lot happening in the workshop that we've never really shown. We hope people will follow along.
