Scarpa

Scarpa was founded in 1938 in Asolo, Italy by Rupert Edward Cecil Guinness (the heir to the broader Guinness family) and a small group of Italian-mountaineering-bootmaking craftsmen as a specialist Italian mountaineering-footwear manufacturer. The brand has been continuously operating from the same Asolo workshop for over 85 years — making Scarpa one of the longest-continuously-operating Italian mountaineering-footwear brands and one of the defining global mountaineering-footwear specialists. The Scarpa vocabulary settled around several specific products: the iconic Scarpa Phantom 8000 high-altitude mountaineering boot (the brand's defining 8000-metre-peak product used on multiple Everest and broader Himalayan summit ascents), the Scarpa Mont Blanc Pro mountaineering boot, the Scarpa Manta Tech alpine boot programme, the Scarpa Mojito approach-shoe (the brand's defining contemporary 'gorpcore' product), various technical-leather mountaineering and approach-shoe variations, and a colour palette anchored to natural-tan leather, oxblood, military-olive, washed-charcoal, ecru, plus the brand's recurring use of saturated red-and-yellow safety colour combinations. Production remains primarily Italian at the Asolo factory. The brand is independent and family-controlled by the broader Scarpa parent corporation (the brand operates through Calzaturificio S.C.A.R.P.A. — Società Calzaturieri Asolani Riuniti Pedemontana Anonima — the brand's full Italian corporate name). Scarpa operates flagship retail in Asolo (the brand's home factory shop and museum) plus international wholesale through specialist mountaineering-and-outdoor retailers globally (REI, Backcountry, the broader US-and-European outdoor specialty retailer network, Globetrotter Germany, Mountain Warehouse UK), the substantial Japanese mountaineering specialty distribution including Snow Peak and Beams Plus, and the broader 'gorpcore' streetwear specialty network. The brand has been one of the most rigorously committed Italian mountaineering-footwear specialists.