I will tell anyone who dares listen that handmade bootmaking—and perhaps specifically, cowboy bootmaking—is the highest form of leatherwork as functional art. And then I started paying attention a bit more to saddlemaking and was like damn ok maybe they’re tied. Parker, Colorado-based custom bootmaker Holly Henry knows a ton about both. Holly grew …

In the US, there are schools for everything—of course you can study business, or to become a doctor. But also if you want to be an electrician, or an airplane mechanic—someone can teach you that. And then you’ve got UConn, which has offered an apparently quite intense puppetmaking major, every year since 1964. So why not for shoemaking? Examples do…

Often, vintage clothing and footwear's defining quality IS quality. As in, its actual construction and materials, how well it was made, way back when. In most cases, it wouldn’t even be here today if it wasn’t. The footwear world we explore on this podcast is absolutely the exception, and a beautiful one, to the core rule of the 21st century: most …

15 years ago Viberg was pretty firmly Canada’s most hardcore logging and industrial boot company. Since Brett Viberg took over the reins of the nearly 100-year-old brand from his father Glen, Viberg has in many ways completely changed the high-end, recraftable boot market—most notably with its Service Boot, which became a legitimate game-shifting i…

To be honest I didn’t think I’d ever get Brian the Bootmaker on this show—he doesn’t do many interviews at all, and for whatever reason I was, quite frankly, kind of afraid to ask him. Which in hindsight is insane because he’s about as sweet and genuine and fantastic to talk to as people come. Working out of the central Los Angeles workshop he firs…

When you grow up in a shoe repair shop directly next door to your actual house, it's hard to not catch the cobbling bug. But oh did Molly Monahan try to resist. After learning how to repair motorcycles and doing some farming for a bit, Molly one day told her mother "we're opening the shop back up!" and immediately put mom back to work making leathe…

This episode's chat is with Jess Wootten of…Wootten! The Ballarat, Australia boots and shoes and leathergoods maker that is doing some very interesting work. We covered how Jess somewhat tripped into a family tradition of bootmaking, ran down what Wootten's making in Ballarat and how, some common misconceptions about the Blake/Rapid (aka McKay welt…

“The only way I learned was making many mistakes and losing a shit ton of money in the process” is how Kevin Wilson neatly sums up the never-simple process of getting Caswell Boot Company off the ground. In the past five years since saying "I'm going to start a boot company!", Kevin's stared down a failed Kickstarter attempt, his original US-based …

Ben and Ticho once again dip into the Shoebag to answer listener questions—and tap in some special experts along the way—including: how to size boots to match orthotic inserts? What are some of the best brands for Women’s GYW shoes? Our thoughts on revolutionary new sole materials? Initial footwear “hard pass” that you eventually learned to love? H…

She was born in Canada and grew up in New Zealand, but few people could possibly seem more at home making bespoke cowboy boots in Guthrie, Oklahoma than Flora Knight. Learning the craft from two of the historic western city's best teachers imaginable—bootmaking legends Lisa Sorrell and Ray Dorwart—certainly didn't hurt things. Neither did her other…

Phil Kalas of the Full Grain Podcast takes over the Shoecast this week to interview Ben about his recent trip to boots-and-shoes mecca Tokyo—expect a deep-dive into city's astounding footwear scene, why and how it exists, plus a preview of five upcoming feature videos that'll be coming out before too long. 2025 dates and location for Stitchdown's B…

In long-overdue returns to the Shoecast, White’s Boots President Eric Kinney and Division Road’s Jason Pecarich sat down to pull back the curtain on what it’s really like to develop new footwear products, getting into every twist and turn on past collaborative makeups as well as some forthcoming never-before-seen construction + style combos. We als…

Amara Hark-Weber surely must be one of the most delightful people in this world—which anyone could likely tell just from looking at the remarkably unique and creative boots and shoes the Twin Cities, Minnesota-based custom maker creates. This episode, Amara fought through a cold to discuss why she makes EVERY pair different from the previous, the i…

For the closeout episode of Shoecast season 11, Ben sits down with Will Roman, founder of Chisos Boots, a young and growing brand out of Austin, Texas that offers one of the best values in a legitimately well made, well designed cowboy boot. They cover how Chisos in some ways started with a lemonade stand, how Will ended up in León Mexico and fell …

For the penultimate episode of the 11th season of the Stitchdown Shoecast, I’m quite excited indeed to be chatting with the just ridiculously talented man they call Bob Henderson. Bob is the operations manager at Popov Leather, the bustling leathergoods workshop over yonder in British Columbia, Canada—and over the last few years has been sucked up …

This time Ben sits down with two, count ‘em TWO Fritz Seidels: Fritz Jr. and Fritz Sr., who every day are continuing on the tradition of the four-generation, 79-year-old Siedel Tanning Corp in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In addition to getting the lowdown on some longtime Seidel favorite leathers and overlooked gems, we get into Seidel’s history and flui…

Before he bolts for a very important trip to the bread store, Ticho is back in the leather-smelly homestead for perhaps our most comprehensive Shoebag episode ever, in which we discuss what shoe care products are essential and which you don't really need, brands we'd love to see restored to their former glory, what to wear with Red Wings (vague hin…

When London (by way of Australia) bespoke shoemaker Sebastian Tarek began making shoes in high school, his grandmother let him in on a little secret: he had been preceded in his journey by 18 generations of family cordwainers. After years of schooling—including at the famed Cordwainers College in Hackney, London—he eventually ended up settling into…

Adam Goldberg has quite legitimately always been one of my favorite actors—and from Dazed & Confused, to the Fargo TV show, to A Beautiful Mind, he has always been EXCELLENTLY attired, right down to his boots. But he doesn't just play a person who cares about boots on TV and in movies! Adam is a very real-deal obsessive who's neck deep in Clinch, Z…

Back in 1989, Tony Wyatt and his brother Lance launched Wyatt & Dad Cobbler Company (and even trained their retired-preacher dad to do shoe repair work, so no it's not just a clever name). Thirty five years later, the operation has seen endless swings in the cobbling industry, weathering them as well as any operation out there. The goal was always …

The sneaker and welted footwear worlds are (very slowly) colliding, and Rory Fortune is smack in the middle of the two In 2019, Rory and his wife Lauren set up shop in LA's design district to open Goods & Services, a half cobbler shop / half sneaker customization pacesetter. Custom resoles—often accomplished via the tricky process of converting cem…

In one of our favorite—and certainly the most sprawling—Shoecast episodes to date, Ben chats with Elizabeth Semmelhack, director and curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada. Which I believe is safe to say—thanks to more than 15,000 shoes, boots, and related artifacts covering 4,500 years of human history—is the world’s preeminent dedicat…

Sagara head man Bagus Satrio is one of my favorite people in the whole bootmaking game. I absolutely love the work he and his team do—his Cordmasters need to be at or near the top of ANYONE’S best monkey boots ranking—and he’s just a hugely interesting and wonderful man. Sagara’s almost 15 years deep doing exceptional work, and about a half decade …

Back in the 2010s, Ken Diamond had a booming moccasin business in Vancouver—celebrities wore his shoes, which also secured a hallowed spot on the shelves of Istetan, the Tokyo department store that's home to likely the world's great shoe selection. But at the brand's peak, a bit burned out and seeking something fresh, Ken bailed on it all. Today, 1…

Alden Madison is one of the essential New York City shoe stores, stocking and selling more Alden shoes and boots than likely anywhere else in the world. This week, Ben and Ticho sit down with shop co-owner Curtis Bosch to talk about how he got sucked in by the good-shoe tractor beam in the first place, how their makeup program has taken off in wild…

Long, long ago, Ben & Ticho did a Shoecast episode in which they had to (just for pretend, don't worry) get rid of all their shoes and boots—FOREVER—and only keep five pairs that just made sense for their lives. A lot has changed since then! So we went back to revisit our picks, and the results are...interesting! Also on this Shoebag episode: why t…

Ten years ago, Steve Doudaklian looked at a camera, said “good morning shoe repair family”, fixed up some shoes, and put a grainy video on YouTube as a service to cobblers around the world. A decade later, Steve’s videos still don’t look all that different from his first—but now they’re often watched by millions, and stand as perhaps the measuring …

To call Sarah Madeline Tierney Guerin an incredibly skilled cowboy boot maker would be accurate—and also highly incomplete. Sarah is also an artist, a historian, an educator, a storyteller, a preservationist, someone who just thinks about things differently than most of the rest of us, and quite possibly the person who knows the most of anyone in t…

So, Ticho forced Ben to talk about Boot Camp, the fine leather footwear gathering / world's fair of boots and shoes and leather / celebration of shoemaking / big ol' party that Stitchdown just put on a few weeks back in Industry City, Brooklyn. The two get into plenty of aggressive reminiscing—about the community connections forged and strengthened…

“Let’s just change it up a bit” is how Tim Little describes his approach to shoe design for Grenson. It might as well be Tim's ongoing mantra. After years in advertising—including handling the Adidas footwear account—Tim decided it was time to change it up a bit and make some welted footwear. Tim Little Shoes was born, with Tim working with various…

Ed Gallun was born into tanning—and even though the American tanning industry isn't what it once was for much of the life of the tannery his great-great-great grandfather started in 1858 in Milwaukee, he simply can't get away from it. That's a very good thing. Ed relaunched Gallun Leathers in 2022, focusing on tanning incredibly interesting, dare w…

We're back with Weston Kay, the one and only Rose Anvil from the new streaming video platform called "YouTube", to discuss the shame he feels for the criminal act of cutting a pair of 100+ year old WWI boots in half, how he outfitted his Rose Anvil Builds workshop with some incredible old cobbling equipment, why it's much harder than it should be f…

Chris Woodford is a bit of a madman. And he’s pretty much thrilled about that. The fifth-generation shoemaker founded Crown Northampton—maker of some of the world’s best-made sneakers—as a reaction to watching his father’s business unravel, along with so much else of the iconic Northampton, England shoemaking trade. After watching factory after fac…

When Dennis Kieback made his first pair of Kustom Kraft boots, he’d barely even seen a pair of Red Wings before. But the bookmaking bug had bitten him hard—and the Kiel, Germany craftsman was infected. Now 25+ pairs into his bootmaking career, Dennis sits down with Ben to chat how tricky it is to get a business started (“who wants boots from someon…

Since 1904, the Shoe Service Institute of America has operated as an essential champion for the shoe repair industry. This week, Ben sat down with SSIA board member Justin Bennett (day job: Chicago-based shoe store/repair shop supplier Justin Blair & Co) to catch up on what happened at the recent 116th annual SSIA Convention, including the organiza…

Ben and Ticho are back to tear open the Shoebag once more to answer probing listener questions such as: how should handsewns fit when they're NEW? What's the best approach to trying out new makers on the scene—and who should you keep eyes open for short-term? What are you doing wrong with (get this)... shoe bags?? Are we nearing a great-boots bubbl…

Michael James is known as “Northampton’s Last Man”—and after nearly 40 years in the game, the director of Springline lastmakers most certainly lives up to the cheeky moniker. In a rangy chat with Michael, we cover how Springline creates some of the world’s finest production and bespoke lasts (plus shoe trees), the inherent talents required to be a …

When Graham Ebner says he makes “really nice, really expensive” cowboy boots, it’s somehow barely a brag. In just five short years the Austin, Texas native (“to be clear, I grew up FIRMLY in the suburbs”) has established an impressive foothold for himself in the pantheon of rising bespoke cowboy makers. After training under the legendary Lee Miller…

Just about one year ago, Luke Kolbie and his business partner Joe Julian took over ownership of 125-year-old Russell Moccasin: the Berlin, Wisconsin bookmaker that has outfitted presidents, kings, outdoorsmen of all stripes, and some very smart/stylish Japanese people. Certain changes were made right out of the gate—which always stirs up more than …

Guthrie, Oklahoma-based Lisa Sorrell can trace her own bootmaking ancestry back to one of the first cowboy bootmakers ever: Gus Blucher (a man quite aptly named for a shoe). Gus presumably would've been quite proud, as for the last three decades Lisa has oh so gracefully maintained a position of remarkably high esteem in the cowboy bootmaking panth…

That's right it's time for another SHOEBAG episode, in which Ben and Ticho dig precariously deep into such pivotal topics as: what is an overdyed leather and how is it the same or different from teacore? What’s the deal with that eyelet at the top of the speed hooks? Which outsoles make for the best toe spring? Chelsea boots with suits: yay or nay?…

The six months of beautiful boot-aging mayhem known as the 2022-23 Stitchdown Patina Thunderdome is OVER! The esteemed judges have selected their winners in both the Work and Open categories (all of whom you can see right here). Fabulous prizes from our incredible sponsors are being dished out left and right. Boots are looking really, really, reall…

For the past three years, CEO Shuyler Mowe has lacing up his now decade-old Builder Pros to helm Nicks Handmade Boots, shepherding the Spokane maker from a pure focus on work boots and into a new era of lifestyle relevancy—and dramatic growth that's seen the company add more than 40 employees in that time. This episode, Shuyler and Ben dip into Nic…

In 2014, Taft Clothing was selling camouflage and polka-dot no-show socks. One fateful Reddit moment later, Kory Stevens was somehow overseeing a shoe and boot brand that was absolutely on fire—and designing some of the most unique footwear you’ll ever see. 9 years later, we had Kory on the Shoecast to tell the honestly captivating tale of how Taft…

Back when Lorena Agolli was getting started in the trade, an aging cobbler grabbed her forearm, frowned, and dismissively said, "you’re not strong enough." Well that was the wrong read on every level—almost a decade later, Lorena is currently entering a new era as the proprietor of Toronto shoe repair shop Sole Survivor. After scaling up the Sole S…

Wyatt Gilmore runs Baroda, Michigan-based, ever-rising footwear brand Grant Stone. So of course we had him back on the Shoecast and completely barred him from even mentioning his own company. Instead, Wyatt gets into what makes the feeling of Goodyear welt shoes so damn addictive, just how casual our world is going to get by 2050, the lifestyles th…

When Eric Kinney took over as president of Spokane legend White's Boots in 2019, the 170-year-old maker didn't even have a website. Just four short years later, Eric—a former White's bootmaker for 26 years who made upwards of 50,000 pairs himself—and the White's team have positioned the brand as one of the preeminent and beloved high-quality lifest…

As global product design & development manager at Red Wing Shoe Co., Mike Larson has touched every single product that's ever been placed into a Red Wing Heritage shoe box over the last 13 years—a lineup that was 260 styles strong just over three years ago, before shrinking to just 12 over the course of the pandemic. After truly banding together as…

A little over three years ago, Weston Kay cut some Dr. Martens boots in half on YouTube. Today, millions of people watch videos of him hacking all sorts of other shoes in half to break down the materials they use, on Weston's Rose Anvil YouTube channel. And it's no secret he said some very serious words about our beloved Alden Indy boots in one of …

We’re not sure there’s ever been a “normal” year in the quality footwear world, but 2022 certainly wasn’t about to start being one. Smart brands reasoned out strategies that allowed them to shift from labor and supply chain scrambles to sustainable long-term solutions. The sudden rise of the Chinese brand dovetailed with the worldwide emergence of …