The Stitchdown Shoecast

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 repair a damned thing.

Over a decade (and four kids, who themselves are growing up in a cobbler shop!) later, Molly and Sally run the reborn Saleigh Mountain Co., the epitome of a folksy, small-town, repair-everything shop in Hermann, Missouri. I chatted with Molly about the crucial importance of  local shops in a world where high-end customization operations are thriving, the boots that have carried her through it all, and perhaps most importantly, piddling. Man is there a lot of piddling in this episode.

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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 to grow a boutique bootmaking operation (not easy!), why Australians are possibly overly obsessed with Chelsea boots, and plenty more.

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

“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 costs in every possible area, and all the general fickleness that comes standard with manufacturing high-quality footwear.

But Kevin has found a truly powerful audience while building a brand that does things a bit differently, especially in terms of custom options, a hugely impressive leather array, and manufacturing in four different countries—including, soon, the US again.

We break down Caswell's different lines and how he manages to cohere them together, the bevy of mistakes he made along the way, an entirely new brand he's been plotting for a bit, and what inspired him a half-decade ago to say “a regular person can do this.”

Caswell's website: https://www.caswellbootco.com/

This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots 

Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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 shoe related, what are the best road trip snacks? 

__________

This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots

Theme song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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 definitely carved out her own path to become a supremely talented bootmaker in her own right. On this episode of the Shoecast, Ben chatted with Flora about the most brutal days in the workshop being some of her best learning experiences, why you can't force artistry in bootmaking, and how to draw out a customer's personal vision, all while considering how the music and boots she creates reflect a pre-industrial society that might just have been a little bit better.

https://www.instagram.com/floraknightbootmaker/


This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots

Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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. 

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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 promising new boot-shoes, and what to expect at the White’s residency at Division Road this September 20th-21st. Also: what in the heck are “lifestyle” boots anyway, and do we need a new word for them?? 

Give it a listen through LINK IN BIO!


Theme music: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

Amara Hark-Weber surely must be one of the most delightful people in this world—which anyone could likely tell just from looking at the remarkably unique and creative boots and shoes the Twin Cities, Minnesota-based custom maker creates.

This episode, Amara fought through a cold to discuss why she makes EVERY pair different from the previous, the incredible teachers who helped her learn the craft in very different ways, why she owns approximately 100,000 awls, not sleeping the night before a customer picks up their pair, her work spreading the gospel of great shoemaking in museum and academic settings, and slashing boots (which is exactly what it sounds like).

Amara's site: https://www.harkweberstudio.com/

Josh's written interview with Amara: https://www.stitchdown.com/the-stitchdown-conversation/amara-hark-weber/

Amara's Voices of Contemporary Shoemakers article: https://www.craftcouncil.org/post/voices-contemporary-shoemakers

Hand Made in America: Contemporary Custom Footwear: https://cdmc.wisc.edu/hand-made-in-america-contemporary-custom-footwear/

Between Dreams and Reality: Bespoke Footwear: https://penland.org/gallery/2024_horn_bespoke-footwear/

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

For the closeout episode of Shoecast season 11, Ben sits down with Will Roman, founder of Chisos Boots, a young and growing brand out of Austin, Texas that offers one of the best values in a legitimately well made, well designed cowboy boot.

They cover  how Chisos in some ways started with a lemonade stand, how Will ended up in León Mexico and fell in love with a small father-son workshop that makes Chisos to this day, where Chisos veers from cowboy bootmaking tradition and where it's extremely firmly rooted in it, his take on cowboy boot gatekeeping, and the grander promise he sees in the iconic American piece of footwear.



This episode was sponsored by Grant Stone

Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/

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.

Come to Stitchdown's Boot Camp, the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more in Brooklyn this Oct 12-13, 2024.

https://www.stitchdownbootcamp.com/

Support the Shoecast and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership

https://www.stitchdown.com/join-stitchdown-premium/