The Frye Company

So, to all reading this, know that I purchased my first pair of Frye Harness Boots back in 1989. They had the beautiful slanted heal (now only available on the women’s harness boots) and Leather Soles! There was no way to purchase Frye’s direct from Frye. I had to go through Bostonian Direct, or shoe stores at the Mall’s… and that was very hit or miss. Not every thing I saw in the Catalog then was freely available. My second and pair of Gaucho Harness Boots I bought around ¹⁹⁹⁴⁄₉₅. I still have those today. My third pair of Belted Harness Boots in Chestnut I bought in ¹⁹⁹⁶⁄₉₇. About 3 years ago I sent them into Frye to be «refurbished and resoled». Without one phone call or email, they «Damaged Them Out» and sent me a knew pair.
Now all of you may say «Wow, nice one». I was devastated. Here is why. the new boots fit was terrible. They «Felt» all wrong some how and within an hour gave me lower back ache.
I then did some home work on the web. Turns out the original Frye Plant in Marlborough, MASS was closed down in 2003 and all the original shoe lasts were discarded, and the skilled factory workers fired. The boots are now made a lot by machine and manufactured in some obscure plant in Arkansas. All of this because the Jimlar Corporation made it so.
I called Frye Customer service and asked for my old boots back. Too late… gone forever. After 3 attempts at different sizes in the new boot, I gave up and sold them on eBay. I then started the long 3 year search on eBay to locate a «New Old Stock» pair. After 2 failed attempts I finally scored a brand new pair of 1995 Mens Belted Harness in Chestnut still with the tags! How did I know. I compared to the photos in my 1994 Catalog to the real images the seller had on the listing. I paid $ 300 for them. When they arrived, I can not tell you just how wonderful a feeling it was. And just two weeks ago I scored two more pairs of mens original New in the Box standard harness boots in Cat Tail and Brown. The price for both from the same seller? $ 340.00. I am happy to say I am done with my searching for my original’s made in the 90s Frye’s and will have these now till I go to my grave.
Frye Customer service today is not what it used to be. Since the original plant was closed down in 03, the whole thing has gone south. Here for your reading pleasure, the whole sad saga of the down fall of Frye Boots:
History of Frye Boots
Frye Boots inspired many bootmen of today by their style, looks, color choices, shaft height, sound of their clunky heels when walking in them, and affordability.
According to Frye, the Frye Company is the oldest continuously operated shoe company in the United States. (Notice the careful choice of wording — they no longer refer to themselves as a shoemaker or bootmaker.) The company was founded in 1863 as the John A. Frye Shoe Company in Marlborough (or Marlboro), Massachusetts, and continued to produce their shoes and boots until the company was purchased by Reebok, International, in 1987.
Reebok held the company only for two years. In 1989, they sold it to a British holding company by the name of Hanson Industries. Hanson licensed the Frye name to the Jimlar Corporation, based in Great Neck, New York. Jimlar bought the Frye company name and assets from Hanson outright in 1998. Boots continued to be made under the Frye name in Massachusetts until 2003, when Jimlar closed the plant, and outsourced some of the bootmaking to China. Materials and workmanship have suffered. Note, some of the Frye men’s boots currently available, such as the campus boot, are still made in the U.S. at a plant in Arkansas.
While a few of the styles of Frye-​labeled boots are still made in the United States, the boots are not made to the same patterns and do not use the same lasts (boot foot forms) as were used by the original John A. Frye Company when it was making boots in Massachusetts, USA. Many men these days have expressed disappointment with the style, heel height, and overall significantly lower quality of Frye-​labeled boots made since the Frye name was purchased by Hanson in 1989, and especially since the plant in Massachusetts was closed.
Update: in August, 2010, Jimlar was bought by a Chinese company by the name of Li & Fung. (Source). This company hopes to expand its sales of Frye Brand footwear in Asia and Europe with this acquisition. Li & Fung also sells footwear under the Coach and Calvin Klein name brands, as well.
What they once produced is highly favored all over the world, and while today’s version of their classics have similar looks, they just aren’t the same. Apparently the Frye Company heard the complaints about only offering 12″ boot heights and also now offer the 14″ height again in its campus boots.
Do your self a favor. head to eBay and search for «Vintage» Frye’s or ask the seller roughly what year they were purchased or made. If you can find any thing made up to 2003 you have done well.

While Frye makes incredibly durable and comfortable products, their return policy is quite onerous. I am currently in level three escalation over whether some shoes I returned were «worn.» It’s a real disappointment, because I have bought Frye products for years and always been very happy with them. I would go to the store, though, because if you order online you basically cannot put the shoe on your foot without them claiming they’ve been «worn.» When you are dealing with shoes that cost hundreds of dollars, this risk becomes too large for most consumers, myself included. The shoes, as I returned them, I would literally eat off of. There is a white border on the bottom that has remained white. I don’t know what else to tell you, really. If you are not sure of your size, definitely don’t order from the website. Now, on the appellate round of returns for these shoes, I am afraid they are going to note the tiny irregularities in the leather and blame them on me. $ 150 mistake!

Recent discovery… Frye wedge sandals are ever so comfortable! They are not *nose bleed* height… and offer a lower heel rise than most. I have 2 pair… Carlie Seam in Black and Carlie 2 Piece in Natural. So comfy, I can wear them shopping.
American made, I will keep expanding my shoe wardrobe with this well made, comfortable brand!

I have had absolutely the worst experience with this company. Horrible customer service, was told they do not ship APO AE when their site clearly states that they do, no email confirmation, and no shipping confirmation. I called The Frye Company and was told they would send a new email confirmation and even gave them a new email but never received anything other than a charge to my credit card. This time I emailed the Frye Company and finally got an order number but they gave me the wrong tracking number. So for 3 weeks while I was waiting on my boots and trying to pull up tracking I kept getting an error message. I then emailed The Frye Company again about my order that was placed a month ago and they told me that I needed to contact my post office and gave me the correct tracking number this time. Oh, and now the boots that I have been waiting for that were ordered a month ago have been delivered to Morocco and have been there for the last 3 weeks. I live in Germany! How did that happen? I am still waiting on an explanation, apology, and possibly store credit due to all the issues but instead all I received was a typed email confirmation of a new order with no tracking, no response, no apology, and nothing in return. Here we go again…

This review is based on my experience with Frye’s customer service. This is NOT a review of the product because I love my Frye boots. However, I will avoid having to ever deal with Frye’s customer service again and recommend that customers order from Zappos,
, or other retailers rather than from Frye directly.
I ordered from
because the reviews on Unilocal were pretty positive prior to the most recent review which had not been posted at the time. My boots came in the mail but someone else’s boots were also mistakenly delivered to my doorstep. My boots were too small so I planned to contact Frye for both a return form and to tell them about the second pair of boots that were mistakenly delivered to me. After calling Frye 3 times, dealing with one rep who was particularly unhelpful and just plain mean, and writing a complaint email, I finally got a response about 10 days later…10 days! That’s how long it took to get the pre-​paid UPS label to me so that I could mail the other customer’s boots back to Frye. The return form was NEVER mailed to me as requested. Luckily I was able to use someone else’s return form for my boots.
The customer service manager who finally replied to me apologized and said she’d offer me a 20% discount on my replacement boots. However, once I placed the order for the replacement boots, the discount was not processed. I had to email them yet again and remind the manager about the 20% discount before she finally applied it. What a nightmare!
I paid more than I’ve ever spent on boots for my first pair of Frye. As a customer, I was hoping to receive both great quality and prompt customer service. I am happy with the quality of my boots but as my experience with customer service was pretty appalling, I will definitely be ordering from a different retailer next time.

i cannot praise their customer service highly enough. here is the sequence of events:
1. the hardware on my boots broke.
2. i cried.
3. i called frye to see if they would send me a replacement piece of hardware.
4. they could not.
5. i cried.
6. they told me to send them my boots. even though they normally only replace boots within a year of purchase (mine were more than two years old), they offered to replace them AND waived the price difference between the boots i bought and the boots i chose (about $ 50).
7. i cried… with happiness!
the customer service rep who i dealt with was not only super nice, but she was always available and called me with prompt updates at every step. this whole process would have taken a week if i hadn’t procrastinated like a crazy person.

The Frye Company’s official motto is «Styles may change but quality and craftsmanship endure.» I’ve never been closer to having a corporate logo tattooed on me.
Every true cowboy deserves a pair of boots. And while I have long had a pair of actual cowboy boots (in the form of some nice Ariat Ropers), it’s been a long time since I had boots that looked like what most people think of when they think of cowboy boots. The unindoctrinated might also think that my Frye Belted Harness boots aren’t «real» cowboy boots, as they lack a pointed toe and have no superfluous stitching across the top of the foot. What these people forget is that riding boots have, historically, frequently been blunt-​nosed. And when the boots are made out of glove-​quality leather, you don’t need to mark up the boot with a bunch of stitching. You just leave that big expanse of beautiful leather for people to get jealous over.
Plus, they make me almost 2 inches taller. Which is a bit like giving a pig a strawberry.

These boots are tough, rugged, comfortable, yet still have a feminine shape and a fashionista’s appeal.
They continue to sell like hotcakes, so if you see a pair you like, order them right away, and ½ a size smaller, they run a bit large.
Good luck ordering online, b/​c any style that is remotely cute, you’ll have to call customer service and order via phone-​they are impossible to reach.
Find them @ Amazon, Urban Outfitters, Shopbop, Anthropologie and chic boutiques.