The Stitchdown Shoecast

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Tony & Tobias of Wyatt & Dad Cobblers on Building a Shoe Repair Mini-Empire Feb 28, 2024

Show notes

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.
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This episode was sponsored by Standard & Strange
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Support the Shoecast, get full bonus episode access, and join the most interesting shoe-and-boot-loving community on the internet with a Stitchdown Premium membership
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We'd better see you at Stitchdown Chicago 2026—the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more—Nov 6-7 at Artifact Events.
https://www.stitchdownexpo.com/
A website. We have one.
https://www.stitchdown.com/

Goods & Services' Rory Fortune on Handwelting Sneakers, and the Shell Cordovan BIRKENCHONKS Feb 20, 2024

Show notes

The sneaker and welted footwear worlds are (very slowly) colliding, and Rory Fortune is smack in the middle of the two
In 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.
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This episode was sponsored by Standard & Strange
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

The (Mostly) Complete History of Boots with Bata Shoe Museum Director Elizabeth Semmelhack Feb 13, 2024

Show notes

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's Bagus Satrio on the Indonesian Bootmaking Explosion Jan 19, 2024

Show notes

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/
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This episode was sponsored by Grant Stone
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Ken Diamond on the Rare Satisfaction of Making Boots by Hand Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

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/
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This episode was sponsored by Standard & Strange
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Curtis From Alden Madison on How to Size Into Any Last, and That One Time He Saw Harrison Ford Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

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

Shoebag!! Craziest Break-In Stories, Plus Ticho & Ben's Only Five Forever Pairs: Revisited! Nov 28, 2023

Show notes

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.
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This episode was sponsored by Nicks Boots—check out their new high-end Brandle line today
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Cutting it Up With Cobbling Legend Steve Doudaklian of Bedo's Leatherworks Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

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.
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This episode was sponsored by Grant Stone
Theme song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Sarah Guerin aka Saboteuse Knows More About Massachusetts Shoemaking History Than Anyone Alive Nov 08, 2023

Show notes

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/
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This episode was sponsored by Standard & Strange
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

Boot Camp!!! Ben & Ticho Recap Our Inaugural Fine Leather Footwear Gathering Oct 31, 2023

Show notes

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
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This episode was sponsored by the imminent Nicks Boots
Theme Song: The Road by Punk Rock Opera

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