The Stitchdown PREMIUM Shoecast

It’s not a stretch to say there is no quality footwear culture quite like Japan’s. But WHY does the Japanese passion for making and wearing great boot and shoes  exist? Well, I had to go to Tokyo to find out.  As the final piece of our five-part Sole Searching: Tokyo YouTube series, I sat down with Michiya Suzuki—ex-Red Wing Japan GM and co-founder of The 2 Monkeys boot brand—to crack it open.  Tu...

Shell cordovan! That most hallowed of footwear leathers—and one of the most worried-about when it comes to care. But it shouldn't be, according to Pure Polish's Andy Vaughn, our resident leather-care whisperer.  In this Shoecast bonus episode, Andy breaks down the basics, starting with one of his golden rules: how to clean shell, which is crucial just generally, and for setting up the ne...

The Iron Snail, aka Michael Kristy, is one of my favorite YouTube inhabitants, thanks to his legitimately unique approach to reviewing, historicizing, and manufacturing crazily high-quality footwear and clothing.  I sat down with Michael to chat about his favorite historical nuggets from the footwear he's covered, how he manages to deliver accurate information in a world that often lacks it,...

Since 1986, SB Foot Tanning Company is most known as the tannery owned by Red Wing , and with good reason: every bit of leather used on Red Wing Heritage footwear is developed and made by SB Foot just a few miles from Red Wing’s US manufacturing facility. But the tannery itself and its relationship with Red Wing stretch much further back—to the late 1800s. And SB Foot creates leather for far more...

Horween Leather Co. and The Tannery Row everything-man John Culliton and Grant Stone founder Wyatt Gilmore stopped by the Shoecast for another bonus Shop Talk episode—where each guest gets to ask any three questions, and the other guest HAS to answer.  Which this time, led to a wonderfully insightful chat about, how the leather supply chain has shifted and in some ways gotten worse, the dangers of...

Tokyo-based, half-American/half-Japanese Seiji McCarthy discusses his uniquely late path into shoemaking, the development of his vintage-Americana-inspired bespoke line, why he feels more American in Japan, and why it’s sometimes better if your bespoke shoemaker doesn't make your shoes entirely themselves. https://www.seijimccarthy.com/

About a half hour from Reno, there’s a place called Virginia City Nevada, where everything feels like it’s 1859 and the US’s largest silver deposit was just discovered. The bars say saloon and look the part. The cemetery is definitely haunted. And of course there’s a custom hatmaker—who shares a space in one of Virgnia City’s oldest surviving buildings with bespoke cowboy bootmaker Jake Houston. ...

This week we've got a chat with Andrew Turriff, a Canadian shoemaker who studied at Cordwainer’s Footwear Design program in London, worked for some big sneaker brands, and did pattern work for fellow Canadians Viberg and time in the orthopedic world before deciding to make a zero-drop, anatomical, barefoot shoe with of top-end materials—and also make it resolable, which it’s otherwise quite t...

Matt Priest, President and CEO of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, came on the Shoecast the morning after 104% tariffs on Chinese goods into the US hit in a rapidly-moving-target trade war with the United States and just about every other country.  What ARE tariffs? How might tariffs and general uncertainty impact massive shoe brands? Smaller ones? Made-in-USA footwear? Retail p...

After a half decade of relentlessly shaming him into it, last month we finally had Derek Guy on the Shoecast—you know, Menswear Guy from Twitter, the style sage behind the Die Workwear podcast on Blamo and his own Die workwear blog, and plenty more.  That first episode—pretty much an hour and a half of shoes Derek likes and doesn’t, with way even more depth than I bargained for—was so good that we...

Andy is BACK for a Shoecast bonus episode—to field listener questions and let us all know how to tell when's the right time to condition leather shoes (and why you shouldn’t condition outsoles), how to unsqueak your shoes, why PH basic=bad, how shoe care misinformation spreads, and plenty more, of course including cheese.  Check out Andy's main episode here: https://www.stitchdown.com/st...

Jamie Thomas is one of the most revered skateboarders of all time—and also a footwear designer and serial skate shoe brand founder. The release of his latest project Warsaw seemed as good an excuse as any to have Jamie take me through the history of skate shoes and the sponsorships that arose around them, how and where they're made—and with what materials, constructions, and performance consi...

The idea that well-made, resoable footwear can last almost literally forever is one of its core allures—but it’s a promise that simply won’t come true if it’s not cared for properly. Especially the leather.  But what’s the best way to do that? And for different types of leather? Well you’ll know a ton more after my fantastic chat with Andy Vaughn, owner of Pure Polish, the Oregon-based company who...

It's our first-ever BONUS Shoecast episode—in a brand new format called Shop Talk.  The idea is simple:  -1 moderator (Ben from Stitchdown) -2 guests—this time, Brett Viberg of Viberg Boot, and Shuyler Mowe of Nicks Boots. -3 questions apiece—which can be about absolutely anything, and the other guest MUST answer meaningfully.  And boy did it end up being hugely revealing, and insightful, and...