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 by the indomitable tractor beam known as bootmaking, operating as Bob Henderson Handmade Boots.In a nice and rangy chat, Bob and I get into how Popov came to be and has managed to become a major player in the ever-more-crowded wallets, belts, and other small leathergoods space, what handmade really means in a world where the term is easily abused, his descent into bootmaking madness, old Toyota trucks (finally) and how they inspire his boot designs, why he wishes he could live at Disneyland forever, and plenty more—this one’s about bootmaking, and business-building, and why we care about what we care about.

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 fluid approach to tanning and meeting shifting market demands, what in the hell all that machinery in a tannery is doing all day long, why making heavyweight boot leathers is so damn tough—and of course, cows getting diaper rash. ______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Nicks BootsTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 hint: anything!), how many midsoles is just too many midsoles, what we'll look back at in 10 years and make fun of ourselves for, and plenty more!________________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant StoneTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 a role as a bottom-maker for some of Savile Row's most prestigious bespoke firms, both in an in-house capacity and also as an piece-work outworker.Today, Sebastian continues his outwork...work...while also creating his own bespoke shoes and boots for clients, as well as select ready-to-wear collections for retailers in Japan and elsewhere. While the outwork keeps his skills sharp and focused, Sebastian's personal shoemaking style is a raw, anti-elegant ("I don't want the act of shoemaking to be the attempt to replicate and perfect something a machine can do") exploration of UK-based materials, all sprung from a love of old worn denim, centuries-old Japanese farmhouses, and possible overuse of the word "singularity". To top it all off, Sebastian's about as delightfully affable and humble as people get, and there are few people more enjoyable to talk shoes and shoemaking with. So I did that! ______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant Stone Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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, Zerrow's, and quite possibly too much more.In an episode that will surely open the floodgates to most-to-all of Hollywood coming on the Shoecast to confess their footwear compulsions, Adam and Ben discuss boots he wore in different roles—usually self-selected!—sings a lovely rendition of "Working My Way Back to Ropers", tells the twist-and-turn-filled tale of his decades-long quest to get James Dean's boots reproduced, and announces the "only"(ha!) pair of boots he wants, all while we attempt to figure out what the hell is wrong with us for loving this stuff so much. ______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots—who turns 60 this year!Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 to build a chain that could deliver essential shoe repair services to communities in North Carolina big and small, and that's exactly what happened—with expansion and contraction following the whims of customers. Today, Wyatt & Dad has two shops...plus, obviously, a cabin in the middle of nowhere, where Tobias Crislip does incredibly high-end repair, restoration, and customization work that's mailed in from all over the globe.On the latest Shoecast episode, I chatted with Tony and Tobias about how it all started for each of them and how they've smartly identified shifting opportunities over the decades, old TV commercials and billboards...about cobblers...why every cobbler is seemingly required to have a thriving YouTube channel, where the trade is going and how to keep it alive and humming in a very real way in 2024 and beyond, and plenty more. _____________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Standard & StrangeTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

The sneaker and welted footwear worlds are (very slowly) colliding, and Rory Fortune is smack in the middle of the twoIn 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 cemented footwear to a welted, continually resoleable state—were immediately a core staple, while fully custom-designed footwear of various kinds worked its way in over the years as well. Goods & Services' work is consistently creative, impressively executed, and honestly just...really kinda dope.In this episode, Ben chatted with Rory about how he cut his cobbling teeth, how Goods & Services' vision and mission have evolved in the last half-decade, why sneaker tastes and trends are shifting around so fast these days, his collection of wonderfully old shoemaking machinery, and why a world with even a few welted sneakers is a significantly better place. ________________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Standard & StrangeTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 dedicated shoe archive and museum. We follow Bata's mission of telling the history of humanity through shoes, starting with  how and where shoes even emerged, then covering everything from King Tut's gold sandals, to how high heels were originally designed for THE MOST RUGGED OF MEN, to why sizing is such a mess from a historical perspective, and how the world's most momentous wars have been won and lost because of...boots.

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 into massively deserved international prominence. Which is great! But not always the easiest. So Bagus and I going to talk about that ride, what Sagara makes now and has coming up, wonderful dogs named after shoes…the whole deal. Been trying to make this one happen for over a year! Language barrier and weather—it rained hard when we taped, you might hear it a bit—be damned. https://sagarabootmaker.com/________________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant StoneTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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, 150km and two ferries from Vancouver on Canada's remote Sunshine Coast, Ken is hand-making stitchdown construction boots, one pair at a time. This episode, Ben chats with Ken about what that moccasin roller coaster ride was like, how he started making boots (with a construction that's just so incredibly different from the moccasins), the meaning and impact of "copying" designs, what perfection means in footwear and if it's even attainable, and what satisfaction truly means to him. Oh and LOST. That too. WE HAVE TO GO BACK, KEN!!! https://www.instagram.com/kendiamondboots/________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Standard & StrangeTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 ways over the last three years, CRUCIAL Alden sizing advice (including for customers who can't come into the shop!), how to make your friendly neighborhood shoe salesperson wildly happy, Indy Boots (surprise!!) and the man who wore them best. https://aldenmadison.com/Here's the sizing site Curtis mentions in the episode: https://dslaw.github.io/goodyearwelt-sizes/sizes.html

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 taking pictures of your boots is so damn fun, what’s really happening behind the scenes in tanning, crazy break-in tales, why we both would suck at making shoes, Michael Cera x Maryam, and why a quest for total knowledge when it comes to great footwear honestly kinda takes the fun out of the whole thing. Oh and cake, for some reason. Lots and lots of cake. Fudgie the Whale, represent.  _______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots—check out their new high-end Brandle line todayTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 stick of high-end shoe repair and restoration worldwide.In as lively as Shoecast episode as they get, Ben chatted with Steve about the three generations of shoemakers that preceded him; growing up in a legit war zone in Lebanon before emigrating to Falls Church, Virginia; how the shop his dad started—Bedo’s Leatherworks—has grown and shrank and otherwise shifted over time; and forming the Shoe Repair International group which now includes over 1500 cobblers around the globe.We also get into Steve's favorite shoes to repair, Alden Indys (of course), how YouTube changed Steve’s business and cobbling in general, what a craftsman sees that the customer might not, and—with intentionally zero succession plan, meaning one of America’s iconic shoe repair businesses will end with him—how long he’s planning on keeping it up.Oh and why all cobblers should wear a shirt and tie on Saturdays.______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant StoneTheme song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 the world about the deep history of Massachusetts shoemaking.Sarah's nom de boot "Saboteuse" (the female version of saboteur, in French) isn't just an extremely cool word. It's a mindset she applies to both her bootmaking work and larger focus of bringing attention to the failures of the larger worldwide systems of modern mass production. In a rangy chat, Ben and Sarah discuss her genesis as an architect-turned-shoemaker,  why she operates out of a replica of the Massachusetts shoemaking sheds known as "Ten Footers" and the fascinating history behind them and the 19th and early 20th century US shoemaking epicenter of Lynn and surrounding towns,  how we can trace larger histories simply by looking at and understanding objects (in this case, believe it or not, boots), and making maybe her greatest work to date while watching Little League games.See much more of Sarah's work: https://www.saboteuse.com/_______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Standard & StrangeTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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, the amazing footwear and makers in attendance, and even a Boot Camp miracle or two—before spending the entire second half going over attendee feedback in an effort to make Boot Camp 2024 the best it can possibly be.If you made it to Boot Camp, we dare say you may enjoy taking a trip down boot-memory lane. If you didn't—well, living vicariously can be a pretty great way to live. And this episode should certainly help you make a call on if coming to Brooklyn for Boot Camp '24 is something that makes sense for you.Boot Camp Recap Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9j-yAXKIRc________________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by the imminent Nicks Boots Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

“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 Northampton factories to create different types of quirky-but-classic styles that found a small but obsessive core audience.That work led Tim to change it up a bit again and take on the role of creative director for Grenson in 2005, before taking the whole damn thing over in 2010. Under Tim's watch, founded-in-1866 Grenson has been reignited in a way that, well, changes it up a bit from your typical historic Northampton shoemaker—combining classic English shoemaking techniques with a more fashion-forward approach that isn't afraid to break rules while knowing what the core of a great shoe always needs to be.In our Shoecast chat, Tim gets into how the iconic Grenson triple welt arose, how and why Grenson splits is manufacturing between its Northampton factory and India-based production (and the importance of maintaining the former), why so many GYW brands feel the need to make sneakers these days, how Grenson has brought a younger customer into Goodyear welted shoes, and plenty more.Oh also I attempt to spell veldtschoen, live on air._______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant Stone — they've got you covered on just about every size and width you could ever want in dozens of stylesTheme Music: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 we say gutsy calf leather, as well as more outside-the-box offerings like wild boar, deerskin, and more. In a lively chat with Ed for the final episode of Shoecast season 9, we get a fantastic look at Milwaukee's impressive tanning history and how the landscape shifted over the decades, how the original iteration of Gallun grew from a small shop to a 700,000 sqft titan, what Ed learned studying "space age" tanning technology in Europe, the wildest leather he's working on right now, and how science, selection, and a bit of magic births fantastic leather. This episode was sponsored by Nicks BootsTheme song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 for him to simply tell people he loves a pair of boots, and alllllllll the things people misunderstand about him and the Rose Anvil channel. And, of course, if any of his feelings have changed about Alden Indy boots, which I unabashedly love. Things get pretty real!!! ________________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant StoneTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 factory shutter while growing up, Chris knew he needed to create a different kind of business. Early wholesale success in Japan provided the buoy for Chris to design a sneaker made with only the finest possible materials available—including J&FJ Baker oak bark leather, and Horween’s renowned shell cordovan—sell made-to-order models direct, and see if it caught. (Oh it caught.)Now, Chris is on the verge of launching E. Woodford, an extremely high-end, full-custom handwelt line powered by Chris’s own bespoke shoemaking knowledge, and his desire to create “careers, not jobs” for shoemakers in Northampton.In a fascinating, engaging chat, Chris talks us through the Woodford family shoemaking history that stretches back to 1908, how wars have always powered the Northampton shoe trade (and what happens when they end), why he’s obsessed with using only the best materials and preserving nearly vanished techniques, and why creating an environment in which shoemakers can learn and grow and be excited about their work every single day is the key to Northampton’s future success.______________________________________________________________________________________________This episode was sponsored by Grant StoneTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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 someone who hasn’t made any boots before??”), how he learned the craft thanks to internet resources and esteemed tutors including Lars Jensen of Østmo Boots and Nathan Florsheim aka NF Bootmaker, his evolving last lineup, sourcing truly unique local German leathers, the “flow state” he can get into, how he turns mistakes into magic, and of course, dogs destroying uppers by randomly deciding to operate sewing machines. Dennis was just an absolute joy to chat with, being very game to fight through a language barrier to share his incredibly positive, inspiring outlook towards his mysterious and demanding craft. This episode was sponsored by Nicks BootsTheme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera