The Stitchdown Shoecast
Exploring the wonderful world of quality footwear, how it’s made, and all the things we love about it. Check out Stitchdown.com for shoe and boot reviews, interviews with industry titans, profiles, release info, and more.
Episodes
154 episodes
Keeping Maine Shoemaking Alive: The Rancourt & Co. Story
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...
How Can Wolverine Revive its Iconic 1000 Mile Brand? Justin Cupps Has Ideas.
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, Wolver...
The (Mostly) Complete History of Cowboy Boots, with Bata Shoe Museum Director Elizabeth Semmelhack
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 ...
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 inf...
Carmina Shoemaker's Carmina Albaladejo on Family Tradition, Global Retail, and Custom Shoes
Carmina Albaladejo heads US operations for the exquisite Spanish shoemaker with the exact same (first) name as her. In this Stitchdown Shoecast episode we discuss how six generations of family history led to the founding of the Car...
The New Thing in Footwear Leather? 145-Year-Old Veg-Tanner Hermann Oak.
Hermann Oak has been tanning leather in St. Louis since 1881, and they pretty much still do it the same way—one way, which of course is veg-tanning. Traditionally a major player in the equestrian leather world, Hermann Oak is edging into the qu...
Nathan Florsheim is Proudly Working Slower Than Ever
Back in 2021, I got a great email from a young bootmaker named Nathan Florsheim who wanted to chat. Boy am I glad I took that call. About a year later I had Nathan—great great great grandson of Milton Florsheim, yes, THAT Florsheim—...
Goods & Services' Rory Fortune on Red Wing Collabs and When to Pull Back on Customization
This week on the Shoecast we’re bringing back Rory Fortune, founder of Los Angeles-based Goods & Services, which continues to be one of the most interesting footwear operations out there. We had Rory on back in 2024, and with th...
Bespoke Cowboy Bootmaker Zephan Parker's Formula to Keep Craft Alive
How do we keep craft alive in an over-technological society? Is it via the individual maker? Or more of a collective workshop approach? Houston-based bespoke cowboy bootmaker Zephan Parker has plenty of thoughts on all of it. ...
The Artistically Twisting Journey of Brooklyn's Bespoke Shoemaker, Anne Marika Verploegh Chassé
My chat this week is with Brooklyn -based bespoke shoemaker, educator, and artist Anne Marika Verploegh Chassé, aka STIEFELwerk. Two decades ago, Marika came at shoemaking from a fine arts ...
Vintage Boot Wishlists and Reconsidering Tassel Loafers: It's Ticho on the Shoebag!
It's Shoebag time for Shoecast season 17. Which means it's time for a serious dose of Ticho, who joins me to unpack all the biggest listener questions.Why are we both suddenly wearing the same barefoot-style shoes nonstop? Which...
Why Making Things By Hand Has Never Been More Important, w/ Cowboy Bootmaker Emily Boksenbaum
When I met Emily Boksenbaum at our Maker’s Day 2025 conference in Chicago, I knew I had to get her on the Shoecast.Emily’s always made stuff. First it was art growing up, which led to a f...
Why It’s Harder Than Ever to Start a Shoe Brand, w/ the Shoe Snob Justin FitzPatrick
Justin FitzPatrick aka the Shoe Snob on fiery times in the comments section, what a dress shoe customer even looks like in 2026, button boots (obviously), and why it’s never been harder to start a shoe brand than right now.
Skip Horween & Nicks Boots' Shuyler Mowe—Live from Boot Camp Chicago 2025
In November 2025, we did a thing. Stitchdown’s Boot Camp 2025 Chicago was a quality footwear mega-expo, a materials trade show, a crossroads of the industry we love, and one big ol’ multi-day pa...
Franklin & Poe's Andrew Li on Where Retail's Going, Malls, and The Perfect White Tee
My chat this week is with Andrew Li of Philadelphia’s Franklin & Poe, one of the best shops in the US for serious quality footwear, denim, and more. I got to know Andrew over the last few years the old fashioned way—seeing him i...
Thursday Boot Co.'s Nolan Walsh on Their Own León Factory, Last Obsessiveness, and The Comfort Question
The joke has always been that Thursday Boot Company’s Connor Wilson keeps his co-founder Nolan Walsh trapped in a factory working on the product. Turns out that joke actually true—except Nolan is the one very eagerly choosing to imprison himsel...
Shoebag w/ Ticho: The Best Shoemaking Teachers, Arch Support, and a LOT of Butter
If you came to this podcast about shoes and boots and leather hoping that you’d get to listen to extended conversations about imported cultured butter, you’ve made a fantastic call. Because this, dear listeners, is the Shoebag, in w...
Red Wing Heritage President George Curleigh on Retail, Time Capsules, and The Red Wing Way
George Curleigh has been president of Red Wing’s heritage division since 2019, in which time he’s been able to enjoy a list of very fun things including a worldwide pandemic, a factory shut-down, a cyber-attack, a periodically dwindling labor f...
How to Revive The Cobbling Industry? Teach it in High School—and it's Already Working.
This past fall, Matt Paisley launched a shoe repair program at Colorado's Thunder Ridge high school, with nearly two dozen students taking the plunge and immediately being drawn into the program, skill development, and practical hands-on cobbli...
SERES Founder Vanessa Arroyo on León, Mexico's Remarkable Shoemaking Culture
My chat this week is with Vanessa Arroyo, founder and designer of SERES Footwear, a focused line designed from the ground up with high-quality natural materials in a way that’s not often seen in the wome...
Sprezza's Clayton Chambers on Timeless Loafers, Gorpy Boots, and Quality
This week on the Shoecast our chat is with Clayton Chambers, founder of the Substack newsletter Sprezza and general menswear individual about the world. After running through the footwear signposts in his own life, from churchboy pe...
Ticho is BACK to Talk Østmo x Iron Boots' Lore—and Next Step
The one and only Tichoblanco, aka Tichoblancoshoes, aka just plain old Ticho, is BACK. Where’s he been?Well he’ll tell ya all about that. What’s he been up to? The biggest answer to that is: happily grinding on his Østmo x Iron Boot...
Boot Camp 2025 Chicago: Exhibitors + Events Rundown
In part two of a tag-team with the Full Grain Podcast, the ever-handsome/charming Phil Kalas grills Ben on what to expect at Stitchdown's Boot Camp Chicago 2025 mega-expo and footwear-loving community epicenter this November. Japane...
BONUS PREVIEW: Brett Viberg Community Q&A at the Viberg NYC Shop
Last week we had our Stitchdown community's first gathering at the new Viberg NYC store—an honestly fabulous-looking little shop in Manhattan’s Nolita neighborhood that’s full of Viberg’s core classic product like stitchdown 2030 and 310 ...
(FREE) BONUS: A Look Inside China with Motiv & Arch Support Project's Samuel Wei
FREE Shoecast Bonus Episode—we've got plenty more for Stitchdown Premium subsribersJason Pecarich of Division Road and Motiv/Arch Support Project co-founder Samuel Wei came on to discuss ASP's legitimately unique approach to foo...