Cole Haan storefront
Courtesy of Cole Haan. Photo Credit: Matthew Hillman Photography
Cole Haan is prepping for its centennial anniversary in 2028 by rolling out a new global campaign headlined by Golden Globe awarded actor Christian Slater and Saturday Night Live breakout star Jenny Slate.
Entitled “Comfortable Anywhere,” the film puts each actor in uncomfortable, messy situations—Slater making pasta for the first time before a dinner party and Slate facing a looming deadline at work—and both triumph by being fast on their feet in their GrandPrø FlexCraft sneakers.
The storyline mirrors Cole Haan’s recent trajectory. The brand proved to be an uncomfortable fit for Nike after it acquired Cole Haan in 1988—the sneaker giant’s first move into the dress-shoe category. Nike tried for nearly 25 years to makeover Cole Haan in its own image, introducing Nike Air cushioning into Cole Haan dress shoes. But facing challenges to its core sneaker franchise, Nike sold the brand to Apax Partners in 2012 for $570 million.
Since then, Cole Haan has quietly prospered under CEO Jack Boys’ leadership—growing from fewer than 200 stores in 13 countries then to nearly 600 globally in more than 100 countries now—even as Nike has continued to struggle. Nike’s stock has dropped by about 78% since its peak in 2021 and was just demoted from the S&P 100 list of the largest American companies.
Most recently, Cole Haan is pushing aggressively into realizing its lifestyle ambitions, expanding from dress shoes where it built its authority to casual styles, hybrid and performance sneakers, handbags, accessories, clothing, outerwear— and its new luggage line in partnership with Travelway Group.
This goes along with its store expansion into travel retail and airports—arguably places where comfort is needed most. A Cole Haan flagship store is opening at Disney Springs in the Walt Disney World resort later this month.
“This opening reflects Cole Haan’s broader strategy to meet customers where they live, work and travel, bringing the brand to life in destinations at the intersection of culture, experience and lifestyle,” the company stated.
Comfort Is The Brand Promise
Across the personal luxury goods market, the footwear category experienced the steepest decline last year, down as much as 7% according to Bain. Yet Cole Haan has sidestepped the slowdown, helped by its hybrid dress-sneaker model that can move from business to casual with sneaker-level comfort.
As it has expanded into running, tennis and golf performance sneakers, creative director Ana Borges said its styles are “more polished” than “normal sneaker brands,” making sneakers one of Cole Haan’s fastest-growing categories. And after ten years in the category, its rapid pace of growth isn’t just a function of newness.
Cole Haan men’s sneaker
Courtesy of Cole Haan
Introducing sneakers to a brand that was historically tied to dress occasions for men and women—it added women’s footwear in 1979—was a turning point that shaped its current “Feel What’s Possible” brand strategy.
“It’s more than just a tagline for us—it’s how we express our brand pillars,” chief marketing officer Krissie Milan explained. “Our brand positioning is steeped in providing our customers revolutionary comfort and impeccable style with the recognition that it doesn’t have to be a trade-off of one versus the other, especially in women’s.”
Cole Haan’s lifestyle ambition isn’t just about expanding into new categories. It’s about zeroing in on how the customers live—being present at key touchpoints where comfort and style matter, as in travel, work, home, running around town, to the gym and on the golf and tennis court.
“We are opening up all these possibilities for our customers by leaning into how they live their lives and for our brand it creates new possibilities so that we aren’t bound by convention but adapt to their lifestyles,” Milan said, adding that footwear will always be the brand’s core offering with other categories building organically from there.
Engineered For Comfort
Support is another keyword that comes up frequently in discussion with the Cole Haan team—the idea that shoes should support you through every step of your day.
“There are two angles when we talk about support,” Borges said. “There is the aspect of being comfortable in your shoes over the course of your day doing all the things you have to do from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Then there’s the psychological side—feeling confident and assured that we are supporting the customer through their demanding days. We’ve all experienced putting on a pair of shoes and just feeling more empowered.”
A great deal of engineering goes into that promise. For men, Cole Haan delivers traditional craftsmanship with lightweight design, flexible soles and inner cushioning built in. The challenge is even greater in women’s shoes, especially heels.
“We’ve reinvented the way of making shoes with what we call ‘FlexCraft’ technology,” she continued. “It looks like a classic dress shoe with a stacked heel and delicate upper. But underneath we add extra cushioning and injected-molded soles which emulate the look of leather but are more flexible, lighter and provide a no-slip grip. Women are attracted by the style, but the payoff comes when she puts our shoes on.”
Milan adds that men strongly resonate with the innovation and technical components Cole Haan offers, while women continue to prioritize its style and design aesthetic—with comfort as the clincher.
Store Makeover
The “Feel What’s Possible” strategy also extends to Cole Haan’s distribution. Besides having an extensive wholesale and distributor network, the brand’s primary customer touchpoint is its roughly 585 stores. Cole Haan is currently rolling out what it calls its Design 3.0 store model which showcases the breadth of its offerings—from a sneaker club section to a pro shop for golf and tennis, with lifestyle anchoring the center of the store.
“The new store design is very intentional,” Milan explained. “Our stores have been traditionally more masculine and now we are bringing in a more feminine sensibility with curved angles, soft lighting, more mirrors and with fitting rooms.”
The company remains largely mum on details about the new Disney Springs store, but it promises to reflect the brand’s ongoing lifestyle journey to “introduce guests to Cole Haan’s signature blend of style and innovation, designed to support the life moments that matter, from everyday movement, travel and beyond,” the company stated.
Innovation Is The Cornerstone
At its core, innovation is powering the brand forward, but Milan stresses that it isn’t innovation for its own sake—it’s innovation to deliver greater comfort with style. “At the end of the day, innovation is really used for driving comfort for us,” she said. “It has to be tied to a specific consumer benefit.”
She points to how the product design teams deconstruct every part of the shoe to find ways to improve energy, bounce, comfort and performance. “Technology and innovation are a big part of our storytelling and our DNA,” she said.
Looking ahead, the company is gearing up for its next major milestone: its 100th anniversary in 2028. “We’re calling it our century celebration,” Milan said. “It’s not just about looking back at the heritage of the brand—it’s also about looking forward and how we bring that to life.
Cole Haan may be rooted in a century of craftsmanship, but its next chapter will be shaped around comfort, innovation and a modern lifestyle vision. It’s a brand intent on discovering what is possible over the next hundred years.
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