ACL's Michael Williams on Misguided Shoe Recs & The "Disappearing Middle" of Quality Footwear

Michael Williams is sometimes a “marketer who hates marketing,” who has helped many of the great US manufacturing brands, up to and including Red Wing. Other times he he’s writing his often menswear focused newsletter, the quietly massively influential A Continuous Lean. 

A while back he pre-invented the idea now used by every single temporary market you now see everywhere, with his Pop Up Flea concept. More often than seems possible, he’s doing something or other with the bon vivant they call David Coggins, whether that’s recording their Central Division podcast, or putting together their new newspaper dubbed The Print Edition.

I’ve been bugging Mike to come on the Shoecast for years now, and every time I saw him he said the same thing: “I don’t know enough about shoes”.

Well this episode now exists to prove that Michael Williams knows plenty about shoes. And also the best stores that sell them worldwide, the quickly disappearing middle ground between cheap garbage and high luxury, travel shoe selection strategies, and how to see deep into someone’s soul, just from looking at what’s on their feet.

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