Swims – Overshoes for Your Best Shoes

As anyone that has gotten caught in a downpour knows all too well that there’s nothing worse for a pair of shoes than a rainstorm.  Trudging through rainy city streets can turn your leather lace ups into beaters in an instant.  For as long as handmade shoes have been around there’s always been a need to protect shoes from the rain, which is where galoshes come in.  Invented over a century ago to guard shoes against the elements galoshes were originally crudely produced from either cloth or wood.  Along with the invention of rubber in the early 20th century came a significantly more practical modern galosh.

For Europeans galoshes have always been a central part of their rainy day wardrobe  yet they never really caught on in the states.  This was something that Johan Ringdal, a native Norwegian observed when he came to America in 1999.  Ringdal grew up sporting his grandfather’s hand-me-down galoshes through every storm, yet when he came stateside he couldn’t find his beloved overshoes anywhere.  After several years of suffering through the rainy seasons, Ringdal decided that if he couldn’t find galoshes, he might as well make some himself.  Ringdal dubbed his creation, Swims, an overshoe that balanced the traditional galosh design with current technologies.  Utilizing tear resistant rubber and a flexible upper, Swims provide a hardwearing and comfortable shield for your shoes.  Best of all Swims allow you to forget the weather and wear whatever shoes you want cause you know you’ll be covered.