The year of 1997: It was a time when the block­buster film “Titanic” was showing in cinemas, Tony Blair was celeb­rating his election victory in the United Kingdom and the German football team Schalke 04 was revelling in its UEFA Cup cham­pi­onship. It was also a time of trans­formation at LOWA. Werner Riethmann and his devel­opment team were busy thinking about a new way to produce hiking boots and make them lighter in the process. The foundation for a new way to produce hiking boots was laid by the leisure-time and running area. For the first time in the company’s history, LOWA produced a shoe that was directly injected and not cemented – the RENEGADE was born.