LOWA is a footwear brand founded in Jetzendorf, Germany, in 1923. Its North American headquarters is in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In its first years, LOWA had help from an orchestra. Lorenz Wagner, a cobbler's son in the Bavarian village of Jetzendorf, took over the family shop in 1923 and named it for himself: LO for Lorenz, WA for Wagner. The company says he and his brothers helped support it with a side business, the Wagner Orchestra. Since May 2026, LOWA's American office has been in Salt Lake City.
His brothers Hans and Adolf had just started shoe brands of their own, Hanwag and Hochland. Lorenz began with heavy work brogues for the neighbors. By 1930 the shop had become a factory making Alpine boots for mountain infantry, and Sepp Lederer had started there as an apprentice. Wagner died in 1953, and Lederer took over with his wife, Berti, Wagner's daughter.
Italy's Tecnica Group bought 90 percent of LOWA in 1993. In 2025 LOWA sold more than 3.1 million pairs and had record sales of $282.5 million. Mountaineering and trekking boots are still made in Jetzendorf, 103 years on. After years in Connecticut, the US office now shares Tecnica Group's Salt Lake City hub, a far shorter drive from the mountains these boots were built for.
Jim Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Everest, made the climb in 1963 wearing LOWA mountaineering boots.
