The Stitchdown PREMIUM Shoecast

This week on the Shoecast it's Sarah McIntosh, founder of the Chicago School of Shoemaking and Leather Arts, who has lived a life shaped by making things by hand. Sarah shares how living in a back-to-the-land community in the 70s (and building her own log house!) led to making a pair of shoes for herself—which grew into a decades-long career crafting custom-fit footwear. 

She also reflects on building a welcoming school where people can learn leatherworking and shoemaking, discover what they can create with their own hands, and connect with a community of makers. From durable shoes and the value of craft to passing the school on to a new team, Sarah’s story is a wonderful look at creativity, sustainability, and letting an idea grow one step at a time.

Alligator leather. It's bold. It's fancy. It's expensive. It’s also the result of, and driving force behind, a massive conservation effort—and one of the toughest crafts in tanning. That’s why we brought Christy Gilmore of American Tanning and Leather on the Shoecast, to explore how her family built a U.S. tannery that takes wild-caught alligator hides from raw material to finished leather, and what far too many people misunderstand about the industry.

Christy traces AMTAN’s history from its roots as a 1923 fur-buying business to its modern operation in Griffin, Georgia, explains how alligator skins are graded and matched for cowboy boots, and gets deep into how regulated harvesting, farming, and habitat protection support wild populations and provide incentives for landowners to preserve wetlands. 

Ticho hath returned for the Season 19 Shoebag episode, in which we answer listener questions ranging from shoe-related time travel, to the upsides and downs of the quality footwear loving community growing like crazy in the past decade—and also preview Stitchdown Expo 2026 in Chicago this Nov 6-7.

Thiele Tanning has operated out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin since 1934. And while things rarely stay the same in tanning—Thiele has made everything from bowling shoe leather, to baseball glove leather, to some actually VERY good patent leather—for decades its wheelhouse has been lining leather. If you’ve got a pair of shoes or boots you truly love from a historic manufacturer, there’s a solid chance it’s Thiele lining touching your feet. 

In this chat with Jordan we get into that lining leather of course, how Thiele tans end-to-end right in one building (a rarity!), how they’re leveraging AI to manage internal processes (without losing their souls to it), what to expect from Thiele at Stitchdown Expo 2026 Chicago, and plenty more.  

It wasn’t always easy for two Belgian guys named Robin to build a shoe brand. Early production setbacks, finding investment, and eventually building a physical retail presence are never easy to contend with. But even though both Lennertson founders grew up in a culture of “we make and fix things around here,”building knowledge in footwear was perhaps their biggest hurdle—one they took on voraciously. 

Luckily they had plenty of help along the way—including for last development, thanks to dear friend of the pod Michael James at Springline in Northamptonshire. Robin’s nerdiness for this stuff is impossible to ignore, as we spend ample time discussing of materials and construction, quality footwear business models, Lennertson’s uniquely modular loafer, and what to expect from Lennertson at Stitchdown Expo 2026 Chicago. 

https://lennertson.com/

There are custom bootmakers—and then there's Texas Traditions. Opened in 1977 by “The Picasso of cowboy boots” Charlie Dunn, Texas Traditions has been run by Charlie’s apprentice Lee Miller since 1986. 

In one of the great Shoecast interviews we’ll ever have the pleasure of publishing, Lee gets deep into the shop’s history, Charlie’s uniquely mystical approach to cowboy bootmaking, the Mexican bootmakers who shared their knowledge with Lee, what makes a truly great toe and heel shape, how to fit a custom boot, contending with people that you can’t do something, and the impossible, beautiful toil of making boots by hand.  

If you know Albert Muzquiz, it’s almost definitely as Edgy Albert, his highly accurate internet alter-ego. 

Albert’s not just another menswearfluencer come-lately—he was also the first writer for Stitchdown.com, worked at LA’s iconic Self Edge, and wrote his college thesis on denim.

Of course we get Albert’s view on what kind of shoes people are wearing in LA, and play a typically opinionated little “GOOD OR NOT GOOD” rapid-fire game with his takes on brands and footwear styles. 

And then there’s denim legend Roy Slaper, who unfortunately passed away last month. 

I didn’t know Roy Slaper. I didn’t even know OF Roy Slaper until I watched Albert’s fantastic YouTube video about Roy and fellow handmade denim maker Tilden Yamamoto. I was taken with Roy immediately—his dedication to his craft, his knowledge of ancient machines, his desire to teach and share. I wondered why he stopped making jeans. 

In this episode—which we recorded about two months before Roy’s passing—Albert went deep into his Montana trip to visit the two denim savants. What resulted is a truly lovely portrait of a slice of Roy’s denim-making life. Hopefully it can stand as a tiny little memorial to someone who cared about craft and its history as much as one can.

At one point, it was tough to find someone in Lewiston-Auburn, Maine that wasn't personally connected to the handsewn moccasin shoe industry. Today, few Maine shoemaking operations remain—but those twin cities on the Androscoggin River continue to house legitimately remarkable footwear manufacturing. 

For 59 years, the Rancourt family has been a stalwart, crafting handsewn shoes in Lewiston—moccasins, camp mocs, beefroll penny loafers, and other iconic styles. 

Mike Rancourt came on the Shoecast to dig deep into Maine's shoemaking genesis and lineage, the process and beauty of handsewn shoes, leather selection and cutting, sizing, what "true moccasin construction" really means, and the ups and downs of a business and true community that was nearly decimated by offshore manufacturing and corporate takeovers—but thanks to operations like Rancourt, persists to this day. 

Wolverine Worldwide is a footwear empire much bigger than just Wolverine 1000 Mile. Justin Cupps is six months into his role as President of the Work Group, which includes Merrell Work, Bates, HYTEST, CAT Footwear, Harley-Davidson Boots, Wolverine, AND Wolverine 1000 Mile. 

Yes separating out those last two is essential, especially in the eyes of Justin—who sees huge opportunity with 1000 Mile as a distinct brand in every imaginable way. 

Last time Elizabeth Semmelhack—Director and Senior Curator of the Toronto's exceptional Bata Shoe Museum—was on the Shoecast, she ran down a (mostly) complete history of boots, overall. It was excellent. 

This time Elizabeth is back to focus purely on cowboy boots—which is exactly what she's been doing for years while writing Rough & Ready, the most recent in a hugely rich (if far too truncated) pantheon of exceptional cowboy boot books. 

Where did cowboy boots emerge from? The heels, the tops, the toe shapes—when did those come into play? What do we all have totally wrong about cowboy boots and the culture surrounding them, from the 1800s until the modern era? It's all right there in the book—and on this episode.