The Stitchdown Shoecast

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...

No conversation about the all-time great women's shoe designers is complete without a very long segue into Stuart Weitzman. Born into a shoemaking family who manufactured for decades in longtime US shoemaking hub Haverhill, Massachusetts, Weitzman quickly established himself as the rare shoemaker to both the stars AND literally any woman who just wanted a fantastic pair of shoes.  For this ch...

I had an absolute gas with Dave Mills of New River Boot, and Dave Corey of Oldspeed Manufacturing on this one. After years of being two of my favorite people on the internet to talk about footwear with, I was lucky enough to spend time with both of them last October at our Stitchdown’s Boot Camp expo—and I guess I needed more. Both Daves have in some ways followed similar paths into the craft and...

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. ...

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/   Support the Shoecast, get full bonus episode access, a...

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...

Derek’s an OG forum junkie turned menswear writer for Put This On, mass publications like The New York Times, and his own always-excellent blog Die Workwear!. In the last few years, Derek has become, to many, Menswear Guy on Twitter , where his sharp cultural insights on style and complete lack of brevity break every rule of the platform in such a wonderfully potent manner (…and sometimes get him...

In 2019, Justin James started Opie Way , a recraftable sneaker brand made right in Asheville North Carolina, USA, using incredibly high quality materials—something that basically didn’t exist previously. Then suddenly, Justin's factory and brand didn't exist. In 2024, Hurricane Helene brought six feet of rampaging water tore through the Opie Way factory. Machinery, records, inventory, su...

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 brand 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 consid...

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...

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 up riding horses outside Houston, Texas, and was,...

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 exist, but they are far too scant—you can head...

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 stuff we buy and use and wear today is, well...

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 icon, and inspiration to many.  In our last chat in...

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 first wandered into in high school while looking for t...

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 leathergoods, before realizing she h...

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 welted) construction that Wootten often d...

“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 factory shutting down, patter...

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? How to start working as a bootmaker? And obviously,...

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 obsession: old-time American fiddle-pl...

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.  Support the Shoecast, get full bonus episode access, and join the most interestin...

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 also hit on White’s lead times improving, very promi...