Since its inception in 1996, RED CHILI has stood for climbing shoes by climbers for climbers. Founders Stefan Glowacz and Uwe Hofstädter had been on the road as a rope team for a long time and had a common complaint: their climbing shoes! At that time, they were either just tight and painful to wear or had a bad fit. After a longer tour on El Cap in the Yosemite Valley the topic came up again and they started to dream about the perfect climbing shoe. Their first crazy thoughts turned into rough ideas and at some point, the decision was made – they would simply make their own climbing shoes! At first this sounded like an obvious conclusion, as both had already suffered for hours in various climbing slippers on walls around the world and at competi¬tions and knew what they wanted to do better. However, incorporating these experiences into the development was and still is a chal¬lenge – after all, their climbing shoes had to meet the exact needs of climbers. This basic idea remains the same today: "only climbers know what climbers need!"
