Stitchdown - Wear Better Shoes

rancourt beefroll penny loafer natural chromexcel CXL

Immerse Yourself In How a Rancourt Handsewn Loafer is Made, Step by Step

All quality shoemaking processes are intensely interesting to watch, but there's a fairly easy argument to be made that handsewn manufacturing takes the shoe-cake. Yes, there are machines involved. But the hand-work that's required to create the s... Read More...

Carl Murawski On Who SHOULD Wear Work Boots, and the Paradox of Buying Lots of Boots That All Last Forever

Carl Murawski is a man of many facets—and many boots. Sure, he's the world's largest YouTube star, and a man with a genuinely impressive perspective on so much of the fashion world. But he's also a licensed electrician who puts his footwear through m... Read More...

Alden Madison x Stitchdown Stitchup2 boot arabica lux veg tan horween

Introducing: the Stitchdown x Alden Madison Stitchup 2 in Horween Arabica Lux Veg-Tan Leather

On the heels of the black shell cordovan original, there’s a new Stitchdown x Alden Madison Stitchup boot in town (or, will be in six months or so): the Stitchup 2, in a brand new leather to Alden: Arabica Lux. Lux is a full veg-tan Horween leathe... Read More...

flame panda monkey boots horween blackberry waxed flesh

The Most Important Shoe & Boot Happenings of 2020

2020: Interesting year! I feel like a few things happened. And despite all those, um, things, plenty also happened in the quality footwear world. Far more than I certainly could’ve anticipated given the circumstances. So Ticho and I ran them down ... Read More...

Viberg Service Boot Shinki Color 4 Oiled Horsebutt

Viberg’s First Drop of 2021 Features Some Very Serious Service Boots

Viberg's an ever-changing beast—which is exactly what Brett and I talked about on the most recent Shoecast episode. And while the Canadian super-brand's first release of 2021 flashes signs of what's may be to come later in the year and beyond—includi... Read More...

Brett Viberg on Where Viberg is Headed as a Brand, the New Widths, and the Worst Boot He Ever Made

It's Brett Viberg time! Few people have exerted as much influence over the quality footwear industry over the past decade as Brett has while he's reshaped Viberg Boot from an industrial boot manufacturer to arguably the most important lifestyle boot ... Read More...

Benzein x Stitchdown Rare Wine Reverse Chamois Chelsea Boot

How to Get the Benzein x Stitchdown Rare Wine Chamois Chelsea Boot

So I'll freely admit it: I've been trying, in fits and starts, to become a Chelsea Boot Guy—and for all the effort, it simply hasn't taken throughout my shoe journey. Until now. Benzein is one of the top Indonesian bootmakers, and considered by ma... Read More...

How Ticho’s and My Shoe Journeys Got Us Where We Are Today

Ahhhh, the Shoe Journey. The voyage from understanding essentially nothing about great shoes and boots to...GETTING IT. It's a path that winds in all directions, and no journey is the same for any two people. But there are almost always similariti... Read More...

How to Find the Best Possible Shoe & Boot Values

WHAT ARE THE BEST VALUE SHOES I CAN BUY? It's the thing everyone wants to know. And while there are some sure-thing answers when it comes to pure bang-for-the-buck, finding the best value footwear, for you, and perhaps more importantly, extracting th... Read More...

Mark (Albert) Barbera on How to Start a Boot Company, and the Future of US-Made Footwear

Mark Barbera of Mark Albert Boots had a dream: make some Chelsea boots. Next thing he knew, he had an entire boot company, operating out of his hometown of Somerset, the little known maple syrup (and maple butter wings) capital of Pennsylvania. Fa... Read More...