The Stitchdown Shoecast

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. 

Jake Houston wasn’t the first person...

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/

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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 tough to find. 

Turriff Functional Fo...

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 prices? What's kinds of supply c...

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 screamed at online, believe it or not...

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, supplies—destroyed in a literal flash.

W...

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 considerations), and how the landscape of...

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 whose emphasis on 100% natura...

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 just damned interes...

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, quite remarkably, a professional pho...

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 to Atlanta to learn shoemaking from M...

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, kinda shit. It’s made to break dow...

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 2021, Viberg was in the m...

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 thread to customize some s...

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 herself barely knew how to...

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 deploys, what it's like ...

“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, patterns gone missing, rising c...

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, because it's highly...

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-playing.

But Flora has most ...