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" As the footwear experts at Florsheim celebrates their 120th birthday, they&amp;#039;re also dealing with a predicament common to heritage brands: how do you respect the past without being weighed down by it? The company has taken steps to focus on today&amp;#039;s customers \u2014 most notably with an ongoing, flourishing, and constantly surprising (in a good way) collaboration&amp;amp;lt; with eccentric New York label Duckie Brown \u2014 and has recently overhauled its New York City flagship to appeal to the younger set. &amp;quot;We wanted to create an environment that spoke to a new generation of customers,&amp;quot; says chairman and CEO Tom Florsheim, Jr. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s important that the space feel more relaxed, but it&amp;#039;s still essential to speak to the roots of the brand.&amp;quot; For the Madison Avenue boutique this means a cozy, living-room kind of layout in varying shades of grey (a thing this season) hidden behind a sleek glass fa\u00E7ade. Amid the dark shelves displaying the fall collection are framed black-and-white photos culled from the brand&amp;#039;s archives \u2014 and vintage shoemaking lasts, for a touch of history. As part of the fifth generation to oversee the business, the Florsheim of 2012 has a simple test for making sure it&amp;#039;s balancing the past-present conundrum: &amp;quot;I want the shoes to look stylish today,&amp;quot; insists Florsheim, Jr., &amp;quot;but for them to be something my great-great grandfather would be proud of.&amp;quot; Florsheim, 444 Madison Avenue, New York    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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