Founded in 1932 and renowned for crafting its signature boots from one piece of leather, the R.M. Williams brand is iconically Australian, heritage-rich and on par with Vegemite and the Sydney Opera House. But what does it mean to be an icon? By technical definition, it is a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol. While most brands seek such hallowed recognition, there is something stagnant and rigid about being ‘representative’ of a time, feeling or place, and one that perhaps doesn’t always accommodate the idea of an ever evolving identity. Such is the dilemma that comes with heritage, on the one hand you have the comfort of knowing your place in the world, and yet, growing from this place can prove a delicate and often difficult dance of upholding the past whilst keeping with the times. Ultimately, identity is a curious contradiction, it can be both unerring in its integrity yet malleable enough to move with the times. We may not have the wardrobe, worries or work life decade to decade, and yet, beneath the hallmarks of a particular point in time, we are the same person at our core. Those that know who they are, can be both of the past and of the moment for identity is at once fluid, lasting and transcendent. -TF