Emily Soloby knew she wanted to help women, regardless of where her career took her. While a women’s studies major in college, she served as a domestic violence victims advocate, work she carried with her through her subsequent studies at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and eventually as a lawyer.
While working in the legal industry, Soloby felt a pull for the creative and decided to pursue that in the form of shoes, maintaining her goal of aiding women. In 2018, her safety boot company Juno Jones was officially born.
Based in Philadelphia, the company creates safety boots specifically designed for women’s feet. The idea for such a line came from Soloby’s own experiences. After leaving the legal industry, she and her husband Ryan took over AAA School of Trucking – which has campuses in Philadelphia and Harrisburg – a business they’ve since grown into a national consulting agency. Going back and forth from job sites to office settings, Soloby was frustrated that the boots on the market weren’t stylish and easy to transition from one locale to the next.
Having a prior interest in shoe design, Soloby began playing around with ideas on her own. When she mentioned the idea to other women in related fields like architecture, engineering, construction, trucking and even those working on film sets or in events, she was met with encouragement.
“Everything kind of came together because suddenly I realized I can help women in this way,” Soloby said, adding that creating boots like these are “about feeling seen and acknowledged in the workplace,” a reference to the fact that such sectors remain heavily male dominated.
As she underwent the early stages of conceptualizing what a boot would look like, Soloby surveyed women on their needs. Working with a designer, they crafted a boot that features a steel toe certified by the American Society for Testing and Materials for impact and compression resistance and a puncture-proof midsole, among other safety features. Unlike many other boots on the market, hers is “made for a woman's average foot shape,” Soloby said. “When the boot is actually fitting a woman's foot, it's much less likely to cause injury because it's not going to be sliding around on her foot or falling off.”
With the design fine-tuned, Soloby sought out manufactures and ultimately decided on a fourth-generation family-run bootmaker in León, Mexico, which is known for its production of leather goods and is sometimes referred to as the footwear capital of the world. Mexico also proved a convenient spot in that it takes just about one week for product to reach the Juno Jones facility after production.
The company’s first product, the Meti boot, was ready to begin production in early 2020. Soloby launched a Kickstarter campaign that February which reached its goal in just 29 hours, ultimately raising $31,110 from 184 backers.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Global supply chain issues pushed the company’s timetable, but rather than simply wait it out, Soloby decided to launch a podcast called “Hazard Girls” as a way of highlighting more women in related industries and creating an online community.
Finally, in early 2021, they had their first inventory shipment and began selling the Meti boot. A year later, the company has established relationships with Zappos and Duluth Trading Co., plus smaller retailers throughout the U.S. Its boots are also available direct to consumer and Soloby said business is about 50% of each currently.
Juno Jones products being available through Zappos is thanks in part to her participation in the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, an annual cohort of designers who work out of Macy’s in Center City. Soloby was part of the incubator’s class of 2020 and connected with – and ultimately brought on as a sales representative – someone who had connections at Zappos.
The company is looking to expand its retail partnerships this year as well as its offerings. Juno Jones has since introduced the Meti II. Both retail for $259. The company is preparing to debut a lace-up combat-style boot later this year. Juno Jones also offers toolbelts for women.
“We were wanting to think of products that we could create to fill a gap and to sort of achieve the same type of goal, which is to make women feel like they are wanted and desired in the workplace and legitimately there,” Soloby said.
The Meti boots are the first in a yet-to-be-created line dubbed the Architecture Collection. Each product in the line is named for a building designed by a woman architect. Meti is a reference to the METI Handmade School in Bangladesh, which was designed by architect Anna Heringer in cooperation with Eike Roswag. The building is made of earth, clay, sand and straw atop a brick foundation, according to the Museum of Modern Art’s New Architectures of Social Engagement exhibition.
Like the buildings and the women for which the boots are named, Juno Jones is a testament to women making their mark.
What’s the meaning behind the name Juno Jones?
Juno Jones is a fictional character that I created. And I wanted to choose a name that was easy to say and remember but kind of brought to mind a superhero woman, a woman who wasn't afraid to try new things. She's modern, she's adventurous.
What other products do you foresee in the future?
Our goal is to create different safety footwear that will help women in different industries so maybe in a certain industry, they might need a steel toe, but in another one they just need more of a rugged boot with a non-slip tread. Or maybe they need just electrical hazard. So just to have more of a variety for different industries.
How do you hope the brand and podcast impact women?
The first thing we're doing is just by being a presence, creating options for women so that they know that they're not being ignored as far as [personal protective equipment] is concerned. The shoe, the footwear, is our portion of that. And then through “Hazard Girls,” creating a community where people can come together and discuss these issues. Every week I interview a different woman about her job and we talk about her journey to get there, the challenges she faces and then advice, and we cover all different topics. It's our hope that by doing that, we are growing awareness about these different industries that women can get into.
What’s the long-term goal?
We want to just continue to grow. The more we grow, the more impact we can have. We want to be on par with some of the major brands out there so that women can have a voice in their options rather than only having the traditional large companies dictate their choices.
