Good afternoon, and welcome to the Caleres Q2 earnings conference call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your conference coordinator. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Logan Bonacorsi, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Miss. Good afternoon. I'd like to thank you for joining our Q2 2022 earnings call and webcast. A press release with detailed financial tables, as well as our quarterly slide presentation are available at caleres.com. Please be aware today's discussion contains forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially due to various risk factors, including, but not limited to, the factors disclosed in the company's Form 10-K and other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more information on risk factors and other factors which could impact forward-looking statements. Copies of these reports are available online. The company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on this call at any time. Joining me on the call today is Diane Sullivan, Chairman and CEO, Kenneth Hannah, Senior Vice President and CFO, and Jay Schmidt, President. We will begin the call with our prepared remarks, and thereafter we will be happy to take your questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Diane. Diane? Thank you, Logan, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Caleres continued its strong execution in the Q2, achieving yet another period of outstanding results. We delivered record consolidated sales, net earnings per share, and generated still strong consolidated margin levels. We closed the first six months of 2022 with earnings per share of $2.70, more than double the previous six-month high set in 2021, and 22% higher than our pre-COVID annual record of adjusted earnings per share of $2.21. During the period, we continued to leverage our diversified portfolio to capitalize on demand in trending footwear categories, so we could meet the needs of our core consumers when, where, and how they wanted to shop, and enhanced our customer file while at the same time making strategic investments for future growth. Overall, the year is progressing very much in line with our expectations, with the cadence of our quarterly results playing out as anticipated. As we previously discussed, we projected that our H1 results would represent well over half of our expected 2022 earnings per share. As a result, we are reaffirming our previous annual guidance. Specifically, we still expect to achieve diluted earnings per share between $4.20 and $4.40, which will represent record or near record annual earnings per share. Now taking a look at the results more closely. Among the many significant highlights for the quarter, we achieved another quarterly sales record of $738 million, driven by a significant year-over-year increase in sales from the brand portfolio segment. We generated record consolidated operating earnings of $68.4 million and an earnings per diluted share of $1.38. We captured a consolidated gross profit margin of 45.6%, holding the consolidated margin level delivered in the first quarter of 2022. We delivered another strong consolidated return on sales, reaching more than 9% during the period as Famous achieved an ROS of 14%. We also made sure that we prioritized our strategic investments, namely in consumer marketing, to drive deeper and stronger connections with our consumers. We also made noteworthy progress on our capital return priorities. To that end, during the Q2, we returned $27 million of capital to shareholders via the repurchase of 1.1 million shares, or roughly 3% of our shares outstanding. As you know, we view this program as an excellent way to drive long-term value for our shareholders. As we progress through the balance of the year, we are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities in the marketplace and expect to generate significant amounts of cash in the year's H2. While we will constantly evaluate the optimal use of our free cash, we clearly view buybacks as an effective means of returning capital to shareholders. With our PE still well below historical levels, we view Caleres' stock as an attractive investment option. In short, we believe this ongoing outstanding financial performance continues to demonstrate the structural shift in the earnings potential of Caleres and highlights the significant competitive advantage of our versatile platform. If you think about it over the long term, this structure enables Caleres to drive exceptional results in strong market environments while still generating attractive levels of profitability even when there is a more difficult macroeconomic backdrop. Let's now turn to our segment-level performance, starting with our largest brand, Famous Footwear. Famous continued to perform at a high level in the Q2, building on the strong performance in Q1 and in meeting our internal expectations across all key financial metrics. In fact, Famous delivered $62 million in operating earnings on net sales down 3.8%, resulting in a return on sales of more than 14%. I would note that this is our sixth consecutive quarter of achieving double-digit ROS in this segment. Notably, Famous also sustained its strong growth margin rate of nearly 49% from the first quarter as we continue to limit promotional activity. Turning now to inventory. Our current inventory position is up approximately 18% compared to 2021 when inventory was low due to supply chain constraints. However, when compared to the same period in 2019, inventory is down approximately 15%. Therefore, we're working in real time to make sure that we're managing our inventory flow by classification and brand to emphasize and amplify what's working and selling through and what's not. Going forward, we believe there are certain spots where we can improve our inventory position, particularly in specific categories, in order to more fully capture pockets of strong consumer demand. As I normally do, let me give you an update on a few key initiatives we feel will enhance our competitive advantage at Famous. As it relates to product, the categories and brands that have been selling continue to resonate with the Famous consumer. In fact, our top 25 brands represented more than 85% of our sales during the quarter. In addition, we believe there is significant opportunity to maximize the vertical integration between Famous and our own portfolio, which has the potential to connect with the current target customer, engage potential new consumers as well as even drive greater margins for Caleres as a whole. In fact, in addition to LifeStride and Dr. Scholl's, which are already performing well at Famous, we believe we are uniquely positioned to leverage our extensive knowledge and deep consumer insights around fashion footwear to address the customer's increasing interest in adding seasonal footwear to her wardrobe. We are working to inject the right styles and brands in the right locations to broaden our reach and to drive highly profitable incremental sales on top of our core athletic and sport business. We know that when she buys for her family and for herself, she is spending more, connecting more, and returning more often. Turning now to marketing. During the Q2, we used the findings collected during our media mix and marketing attribution study to build out and execute a media plan that would be more effective in efficiently reaching the consumer. We strategically invested in consumer marketing, including TV, creative production, and paid search, really accelerating these efforts ahead of back to school. I would be remiss if I didn't highlight the outstanding back to school campaign that launched on July fifth. In fact, Famous celebrated back to school in a big way with a fun, happy, and musical campaign. It centered around a TV commercial featuring John Legend's "Crowd Go Crazy" and ran across premier programming and networks. You can see the full commercial via the link in our quarterly earnings slides. Before I move on to the brand portfolio, I'd like to provide some color on the consumer demand environment and more specifically around the early trends we're seeing during this important back to school season. Since March 2021, Famous has benefited significantly from elevated levels of consumer demand, and those conditions continued for most of the Q2. However, beginning in July, we began to see demand and traffic and conversion impacted by a more, cautious consumer. As a result, while we anticipate and see clear evidence of a solid back to school season, we're currently forecasting Q3 Famous sales to decline approximately 4%, more similar to what we've experienced in the H1 of 2022. In short, Famous had an outstanding H1 of the year with double-digit operating margins, underscoring the significant power and agility of the Famous brand and providing just a terrific foundation for another strong earnings year in 2022 and beyond. While, yes, consumer demand may moderate somewhat in the H2 of the year, Famous remains positioned to win with its national footprint, its strong digital business, its improving inventory position, enhanced consumer experience, and all of those being very powerful drivers for growth. Now let me turn to the brand portfolio. The brand portfolio turned in another exceptional performance, achieving significant year-over-year improvements and continuing to lay the groundwork for a significant step up in the segment's overall annual earnings contribution. Specifically, we delivered an approximately 36% year-over-year increase in sales, driven by consumer demand across trending categories and reflecting the successful execution of our initiatives to elevate product design, refine our product assortments, and importantly, to increase the availability of inventory to meet demand. In fact, we saw double-digit sales increases across much of the portfolio as we not only had the right products the consumer wanted, but the inventory behind the right brand and styles to meet the consumer's needs. Clearly, this was a significant shift from the environment from last year. Ken will discuss our inventory position in more detail shortly. In addition, our gross profit margin was 38%, in line with the first quarter of 2022. In total, the Brand Portfolio achieved $29 million in earnings, a 78% increase over 2021, with a 215 basis point improvement in the segment's return on sales. Also during the quarter, we achieved a 30% increase in the portfolio's direct-to-consumer business, highlighting the power of our brands coupled with our improving reach of our digital capabilities. This included an approximately 9% growth from our own e-commerce sites with solid increases from nearly every one of our branded websites. In addition, we drove a 27% year-over-year increase in new customers as consumers continue to look to our portfolio for fresh and compelling products and diverse assortments. We believe we can leverage our powerful brands, customer analytics, and overall expertise to unlock more value from the total Caleres customer file over time. Now let's look more closely at some brand-level detail. First, it's important to note that several of our brands are gaining share and winning with the consumer, a consumer who is definitely out and looking for new and updated footwear for fall. In fact, given our early reads on what the consumer wants for the season, with boots showing positive trends, it appears dress and casual will remain strong as well, and we are ready. Our Sam Edelman brand delivered strong results in the quarter, with a year-over-year sales increase of 86%. Of course, this performance was driven by strong demand across all categories as well as a strong in-stock position of low inventory. While the brand's wholesale business improved, the highlight again this quarter was the growth in its digital business, with samedelman.com up nearly 60% when compared to the same period last year. In addition, the brand continued to engage with consumers, increasing its consumer file by more than 30% and underscoring the significant connection the brand is fostering with new customers. I would also note the most recent Sam Edelman catalog arrived in homes just under two weeks ago, and it is generating excitement around our fall product and translating to an uplift in sales and an increase in web traffic. Finally, next week we will be launching an exciting campaign with world-renowned supermodel Naomi Campbell. We're anxious for everyone to get a look at this campaign. It's new and fresh and really uses Naomi's powerful presence to support the power of Sam's product. The campaign will showcase key items from the footwear collection, highlighting both new fashion styles as well as the brand's heritage classics. Next, our Naturalizer brand has continued its exceptional turnaround, with total sales up nearly 70% as the brand benefited from strong dress, casual, and occasion-based trends, and also from its solid inventory position behind key styles. Importantly, the brand's sales improvement was broad-based, with strong sell-through at our key retail partners and with a more than 50% increase on naturalizer.com. Notably, the brand's top 10 styles generated 35% of its total business, highlighting the commitment to our Edit to Win initiative. In addition to the uplift in sales, another period of lower promotional activity drove substantial improvement in margin. The ongoing evolution of the Naturalizer brand continues to resonate with a younger, educated, and more affluent consumer and has successfully combined great fit and comfort with style. We believe the brand's relevancy is attracting a wider audience, appealing to the consumer earlier in her career and meeting her needs throughout all of life's occasions. Now, Allen Edmonds also continues to show strong signs of improvement, with sales running ahead of last year, higher AURs, and approximately 500 basis point increase in gross margin over the Q2 of 2021. Demand continues across dress and sneaker classifications as interest in our iconic styles grows, and we leverage these silhouettes in new casual ways. Also, Edit to Win is additionally yielding great results, with our top 10 shoe patterns representing 46% of our total footwear business. In addition, our recent limited drops, namely the McAllister and Mora, have been successful in augmenting our full price selling and supporting our strong margin levels. Our latest campaign, Team Colors, which I would definitely recommend you take a look at, is the epitome of Allen Edmonds' unique capabilities around customization, a feature that we know the consumer wants and loves. All things are for sure heading in the right direction at Allen Edmonds. Finally, wow, LifeStride has really come on strong. Sales increased 79% over the comparable period last year, with AURs rising significantly. This performance demonstrates the value the brand provides consumers, particularly in this macro environment. The compelling new product design as well as delivering the comfort level the consumer is demanding post-pandemic. LifeStride, which touches a large and growing segment of the footwear market, is rapidly becoming a name that consumers know and trust. In short, the momentum in the Brand Portfolio continues as we are seeing demand strength across many of our brands due to portfolio's versatility across categories and across price points. Consumers are looking for fresh and new for fall, and they are reacting well to our products up and down the Brand Portfolio. Looking ahead, we expect to build on the solid foundation established in the segment during the H1 of this year. We will of course lean into our strong product design and our diversified assortment. Make sure that we leverage that inventory position, build on our consumer insights, keep that Edit to Win initiative going, capitalize on the strong demand, and then always look for new ways to unlock future growth and opportunities. As we look ahead, 2022 is shaping up to be another record or near record year for Caleres. We believe that the stage is set for a strong and highly profitable 2023, given the tremendous progress we've made across a wide range of strategic and value-driving initiatives in recent quarters. With that, I'll now hand it over to Ken for a more detailed view of our financials. Ken? Thank you, Diane, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to start my discussion today by sharing additional details around our strong Q2 results, our capital allocation plans, and our outlook for the Q3 of 2022. It's important to note that most of my commentary will focus on the comparable period in 2021, with some supplemental comparisons to the Q2 of 2019 where relevant and useful. We delivered consolidated Q2 sales of $738.3 million, which was 9.3% above the Q2 of 2021. As Diane mentioned, this performance was driven by the Brand Portfolio's outstanding 35.6% increase over the Q2 of 2021 as strong consumer demand for our brands and product assortments continued. As expected, Famous Footwear sales declined 3.8% in the quarter, driven by a 3.4% decline in store count year-over-year and a later start to back to school. Our consolidated gross margin was 45.6%, down 209 basis points from the Q2 of 2021, reflecting a higher mix of Brand Portfolio sales and increases in freight expense. Famous Footwear delivered a gross profit margin of 48.9% in the Q2. The 118 basis point decline was driven by a more modest level of markdowns and an increase in freight costs associated with e-commerce sales. Gross margin at Famous Footwear was up more than 550 basis points versus the Q2 of 2019. Brand Portfolio recorded Q2 gross margin of 38.3%, a 139 basis point decline over the Q2 of 2021, driven by an increase in wholesale sales, higher discounts, and markdowns. The gross margin in Brand Portfolio increased over 350 basis points over the 2019 levels. Our Q2 SG&A expense was $268.4 million, or 36.4% of sales, a 206 basis point improvement as compared to the Q2 of 2021, which included approximately $10 million of stock and incentive compensation expense that will occur in the Q3 this year. Our operating earnings for the quarter were $68.4 million, or 9.3% of sales, reflecting a 14% return on sales at Famous Footwear and a 9% return on sales at Brand Portfolio. This all resulted in diluted earnings per share for the quarter of $1.38. This is up from $0.61 in the Q2 of 2019 and $0.97 in the Q2 of 2021. Our EBITDA for the trailing 12 months was $324 million, in excess of 11% of sales. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, the company generated $7.6 million in cash from operations during the quarter and continued to prioritize that cash towards shareholders, funding our dividend, buying back shares, and investing in our business, specifically in consumer marketing. We ended the Q2 of 2022 with approximately $349 million in borrowings under our ABL revolving credit facility and no long-term debt. Our Q2 interest expense was $2.6 million, down $2.2 million from the Q2 of 2021 and down $4.8 million from the Q2 of 2019. Given the recent increases in interest rates and expectation for further increases from the Federal Reserve, we expect our interest expense to approximate $13 million for fiscal 2022. I now think it would be helpful to spend some time on our inventory position. Consolidated inventory at quarter end was up approximately 36% compared to the Q2 of 2021 and was down slightly to the Q2 of 2019. The increase included an 18% increase at Famous Footwear and a 64% increase in the Brand Portfolio. Famous Footwear inventory was down 15% when compared to 2019 levels, while the Brand Portfolio was up 14%. As you know, we believe a central component to drive growth in the Brand Portfolio this year is to ensure we align our inventory with consumer demand. To that end, we will continue to manage the supply chain aggressively, placing a strong emphasis on building up each brand's top-selling styles. We believe that having core and fall goods behind the right brands and styles could be a competitive advantage heading into fall and expect to capture demand as we progress through the year's H2. as we turn now to capital allocation, as you know, we carefully and constantly evaluate the most value-enhancing avenues for our free cash flow. At the start of the fiscal year, we put in place a flexible capital return program inclusive of dividends, buybacks, and investing in growing our business. We executed on that plan during the Q2, repurchasing nearly 3% of our shares outstanding for $27 million. As a reminder, our reaffirmed fiscal year guidance takes into consideration our year-to-date share repurchase activity. While we are constantly evaluating the optimal use of our free cash, given our outlook for strong cash generation during the H2 of the year, we would expect to make ongoing purchases under the existing authorization during the remainder of 2022. Finally, inclusive of our H1 performance and current expectations around our underlying business for the year, Caleres is reiterating its annual financial guidance. Specifically, we are raising and tightening our consolidated net sales range to be up between 4% and up 6% when compared to 2021. This is up from our previous net sales outlook of up 2%- 5%. As Diane mentioned, our earnings per share are expected to be between $4.20 and $4.40 per share. Additionally, we're making the following assumptions regarding our Q3 2022 performance. We expect our consolidated sales to be comparable to last year, with Famous Footwear sales down approximately 4% compared to the Q3 of 2021, and Brand Portfolio sales expected to be up between 7% and 10% over the Q3. Consolidated gross margins are expected to be flat to last year. Our SG&A expense will approximate 36% of sales, including investments in store experience and customer acquisition. In comparing to 2021, there is timing of approximately $10 million of stock and incentive compensation expense that is occurring in Q3 of 2022 that occurred in Q2 of 2021. Our earnings per diluted share for the Q3 is expected to be between $1.05 and $1.15 per share. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Diane. Thanks, Ken. Before we begin Q&A, I think as most of you know by now, I recently announced that I plan to retire as CEO in mid-January. It's been an immense privilege and honor to lead Caleres, and I couldn't be happier that the board's asked me to continue to work with them and this terrific management team as executive chairman when my tenure as CEO is up. You know, everybody always wants to know, like, why now and what sort of made you decide that this is the right moment? You know, for me, given the strength and the momentum in our business, I just thought this was the perfect time to pass the baton to Jay as part of our long-standing and carefully planned succession process. I'm confident that he's the ideal person to lead Caleres forward at this point in time and to build on the many initiatives that we've put in place in recent years to drive growth across the company. Now, I know Jay would like to say a few words before we turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Jay, you wanna say a few things? Absolutely. Thanks, Diane. I'm excited to lead Caleres and to continue to build on our recent successes and to continue to identify new opportunities for growth. I'm also extremely confident in our portfolio and our capabilities, and most importantly, in our talented global team. As many of you might know, I've had the good fortune to work alongside some of the best in the industry, especially at Caleres, and above all with Diane, and I thank everyone for their support and encouragement. Looking forward, I firmly believe in the significant potential of Caleres and our ability to unlock long-term value for our shareholders. I also look forward to talking with many of you over the coming months. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator? Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. We ask you to please ask one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue. If you'd like to be placed into question queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star one. Once again, we ask you please ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue. Our first question today is coming from Dana Telsey from Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is now live. Dana, perhaps your phone is on mute. Oh, yes, I'm on mute. Hi. Sorry about that. Jay, congratulations on your new role. Very well deserved. Diane, congratulations. I'm not gonna say goodbye because being Executive Chairman, you still remain in the mix, which is a very good thing. Right. Thank you. Congrats. I have one more call too, Dana. As, as— Well, I'm officially CEO. I told everybody I am. I am the CEO until I'm not. So Mm-hmm You know. Well- Go ahead with your question. No worries. Nice to see the big pickup in the Brand Portfolio. How much of the Brand Portfolio improvement is driven by the current environment of social occasion and what you're seeing there? What are you doing in terms of the inventory levels? Where do you see that Brand Portfolio inventory leveling out at the end of the year? How's the wholesale accounts in terms of ordering patterns there? Yeah. Just on Famous, I had a question on what you mentioned, Ken, about the later start to back to school. What did you see and how are you managing pricing or in this competitive back to school season? Thank you. Thanks, Dana. I'll start maybe with your second question first on Famous and back to school. As you know, as I said in my comments and Ken reiterated that we really have seen August and back to school very much a continuation of the trend that we have seen in the Q2. You know, as we've been moving through August, we've seen that trend improve a little bit, which is nice to see. But there's still three-four more weeks that we have of really getting through back to school, and we did see the build in our back to school business coming really a little bit later than we had seen in prior years. Who knows? I don't know whether the consumer was really enjoying those great vacations that they couldn't have in the last two years, or they were, you know, not thinking about getting back to school as quickly or whether it was the impact on, you know, inflation and gas, et cetera, really on their overall sentiment and buying much more closer to need. Really anticipate it's gonna be in that down 4% range. Have seen it improve a little bit from that, you know, in the month of August, but, you know, wanna make sure we are thoughtful about our outlook. You know, kids and accessories has been very, very strong. That's a little bit on Famous, and I can come back on that if needed. With respect to the Brand Portfolio, I think it's a combination of so many things that have really driven that business. I think it's the great strategic work and product work the teams have been doing for really I think throughout this whole pandemic cycle to make sure that we were leaving behind the things that we didn't wanna carry forward and make sure that we were really focused on what we wanted this Brand Portfolio to look like post the pandemic. I think Jay and the team's done a great job on that. Then I would say, I'll pass it to Jay, the only other thing is, you know, when we look, it's not just a little piece of our portfolio that's working, it's across the entire portfolio that's been performing well. It isn't just dress. You know, it actually is casual product and sandals and you name it. The nice thing is, sure, occasion and dress, you know, we got some nice lift in that, but it really has been broad-based. I'll turn it over to Jay, Dana, to give you a little bit more color on the brands. Yeah. I think that really sums it up nicely. Just to add a few more things. About over 50% of our portfolio's business is in the casual. While we did see some nice growth coming out of dress, we also saw strong growth coming out of the casual segment, which I think really makes us feel great about the go-forward position. I believe you asked a question about how do we feel about, you know, order book and going forward, and we do see that, you know, we're on track with that. It feels very right to where we've been working on that. Our inventory is very closely aligned with, I would say, our top sellers in that, using that Edit to Win capability. We feel really good about going forward into fall, but obviously a little more measured than we were in the H1, which is really consistent with our guidance. Thank you. Great. The next question is coming from Laura Champine from Loop Capital. Your line is now live. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on your announced but not yet executed retirement, Diane. Congratulations on the promotion, Jay. Thank you. This is a basic one, but why raise the top line guide a little bit but leave the bottom line guide unchanged? Yeah, Laura. I'll take that. Thanks for the question. You know, I think the top line growth is really. You know, through the H1, we saw an acceleration in the Brand Portfolio. You know, as we reported, while Famous Footwear's return on sales last quarter were 14%, we've got the Brand Portfolios are up to 9%. It's a little bit of the mix, right? The growth that we added is coming in a business segment that has a lower percentage. I think the other piece of it is really on the interest expense. That initial outlook had about $10 million of interest expense included. Just with the raises that we've seen, we have been prioritizing buying back shares as opposed to paying down that revolver debt. That's gonna be up, you know, about $3 million-$13 million. That's really what it is. We're trying to give ourselves a little bit of room in the rest of the year just to make sure from a margin standpoint. That's the contribution. Got it. Can you see any positive? I hear what you're saying about sort of a late back to school and a consumer that obviously is distracted and under pressure. Are you seeing any kind of a lift from the great position you have in the market at Famous Footwear with Nike, whereas they've consolidated some of their family wholesale distribution? Right. You know, not I would say that we have not seen a lot of that as of yet, but I think that has, Laura, for us as we look at that, it feels that's one of the areas of those pockets of consumer demand that's strong that we don't have, you know, all of the inventory in the places that we'd like. While our kids business in Nike, we seem to have pretty good inventory availability there, although that's getting a little tighter given the strength of it, we believe that, you know, in the next 30-60 days as we receive more receipts, I would expect to see that advantage continue to sort of play out in the late third and Q4, and obviously into 2023. The other thing in terms of, you know, inventory levels too, it's, you know, it's that double-edged sword. We've also tried to manage that so carefully, so we, you know, we had the right things in the right places. In Famous' case, you know, it's a little more of an opportunity for us right now. Things like Converse too could be an area that we'd like to see some additional inventory, and a few other places too. You know, the market was so disrupted, and there was a lot of dislocation with respect to inventory, and I always believed that it was gonna take much of 2020 - much of the full year of 2022 to really get things back in line, you know, with where we thought we were really gonna be specifically. I think overall for Famous, they've done a really nice job of really balancing that, making sure that we manage that, you know, as well as we possibly could. You know, still down 15%, you know, from 2019 levels. Opportunity. I think about it as an opportunity go forward. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is coming from Mitch Kummetz from Seaport Research. Your line is now live. Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. Let me add my congratulations as well. So Diane, you made a comment I think early on in your prepared remarks about some positive reads on boots. Can you just remind us how important the boot category is to both the Famous business and also the Brand Portfolio, and kinda how you think fashion trends in boots will play out, especially with maybe a bit of a pendulum swing to kind of dress and occasion? Right. Great question, Mitch, and thank you for the congrats. Appreciate that. You know, yeah, the early read actually on boots for Brand Portfolio is very good, and it's great also in our Famous business. As a% of the total, and Jay's kind of looking it up, but I think we're about a third of our business in fall is in boots. We're seeing, you know, things that are not quite as casual as they had been, a little bit more dressed up, a little bit more on heels, and lugs also have continued to be, you know, pretty good in certain categories of boots. The Brand Portfolio is extremely important for us in the fall season, and we really think we're in great position to take advantage of that. In the Famous business, it's really more on the casual side and more in, I would say, you know, outdoor kind of looks. That's again, you know, as we look at the intercompany opportunity there, you know, there's lots of ways that we can really work with Famous to, you know, take advantage of our not only our expertise and our knowledge of where things are trending, but also help in terms of, you know, some of the short-term opportunities that they might have. I think again, it bodes well, you know, for us in the back half of the year, and it feels good so far. I was kinda surprised to see it start. I think people are so anxious to see something new, and add something that they haven't added to their closet in a while. I think that's really what's happening there. Jay, would you... What else are you seeing on boots and- I think the only other thing is that high shaft, although it's much smaller portion to the total boot business, it's come on very strong, and that's a trend we haven't seen really work well in I would say almost three years. It's again going back to that consumer reacting to newness and where it's fashion appropriate. Some really nice sellings, and we've seen it in a couple of our brands, Sam Edelman and Naturalizer being two of them, that have been very strong. Okay, great. Then on the Brand Portfolio business, can you remind us how much you sell into the department store channel? As some of the department stores have reported, they've talked about some inventory challenges, albeit maybe not necessarily in your categories, and they've canceled receipts and things like that. I'm just wondering if some of that activity is at all filtering down to the Brand Portfolio business at all, as maybe they're just overall becoming a little bit more cautious on the consumer and the environment? Yeah. I'll add a few things and then Jay can jump in too. Mitch, you know, it's about 20%. The department stores are roughly 20% of our total Brand Portfolio business, and that's been, you know, around that range I'd say for the last, you know, couple of years. You know, the great advantage that we have with that though is, you know, it's not just what we're selling into the brick-and-mortar there, right? We also have a great opportunity. They do tremendous businesses digitally, and then we do a lot of our business drop ship too. So as the consumer's looking for certain brands and products, that capability that we have really helps us address those opportunities with the consumer. I'm sure, Jay, you could Yeah Comment a little on kind of what you're seeing with, you know, how the department store is now thinking about some of their opportunities. Yeah. I would say that. You know, there's Well, people are still cautious. We're really looking at the business, with our sales and our inventory kind of being in line, going forward and watching that very closely, using the drop ship capability that we have to really fuel additional growth. We're seeing that measured. Our retail inventories, while up to 2021 commensurate with the sales, are still down to 2019 by about 13%. When we said we're kind of bringing them back in a new way, we really are bringing them back in a new way and watching that to make sure it doesn't get out of line. Okay, thanks. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is coming from Steven Marotta from C.L. King & Associates. Your line is now live. Good evening, Diane, Jay, Ken, and Logan. Diane, it might be a little bit early in the season, but can you maybe comment on the fact that back to school might this year just be long-tailed and not necessarily muted overall when you look at the entirety of this season? Yeah, it's hard to know yet, Steve. I know that, you know, it seems like it was building, you know, seven-10 days later than kind of what we had expected. We're yet to see whether or not that's, you know, you catch all of that or is that, you know, business not gonna materialize or, you know, or is it gonna come later. I think, you know, we've got a couple more weeks to see it, to understand what that's gonna look like. As I mentioned, you know, August has been a bit better than that 4% that I talked about that was a continuation from Q2. You know, we wanna make sure that, you know, we see it, because it is a little unusual. You know, the consumer sentiment, the inventory levels, you know, the what they have in their closet, what they don't, it's a little more of a shift again this year. Trying to make sure that we take all of that into consideration and give a good and reasonable outlook, you know, for that back to school season. We sure hope so, you know? We hope. Sure We hope to see it continue longer into September. Sure. I understand. My follow-up question, Ken, can you talk a little bit about costing expectations maybe for the H1 and H2 of next year? Not necessarily obviously to the penny, considering that you're still taking orders and it's a lot of moving targets, but also considering that largely commodity costs are rolling off. There's chatter of capacity that's coming online or that's now available in factories where it might not have been earlier, and that generally, costing is rolling off or is seemingly peaked. Wondering how that is affecting your unit costing in the H1 of next year and the H2 as well. Thanks. I don't think we're seeing a ton of costs rolling off. What I would say on our pricing is the demand for our brands, I think the strength there has allowed us to continue to hold our price and price increases, if you will, into the H2. You know, our initial guidance for the year had us holding our total gross profit margin flat, and that was giving back 100 basis points at Famous and seeing a couple hundred basis points improvement, and that was with an assumption that we were gonna be able to continue to hold the price increases we took for spring into fall, and that's happening. Ocean freight is something that, you know, we're starting to see come down a little bit, more so than product cost. That really won't show up until those goods come in through inventory and then are sold back through and we realize, you know, the profit on those products. We're not seeing a big reduction right now across the board in cost. I don't know, Jay, if there's anything that you would add to that around pricing or costing. No, we haven't seen that come through yet. Although the supply chain is normalizing, I would say, and so we're gonna get back to a more normalized flow, so, but not yet have we seen the component prices coming down. More to come there, Steve, kinda as we get into, you know, starting to lay out our specifics around next year. Thank you. I'll take the balance offline. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Diane for any further closing comments. Yep. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. We appreciate it, and we look forward to speaking with you along the way and on the Q3 call as well. Take care. Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time, and have a wonderful day. 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