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.
On the most recent Shoecast episode, I talked 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 the astounding hand-welted Horween shell cordovan Birkenchonks he made for me.
Give it a listen below!
And definitely also take a few minutes to watch us chatting over a step-by-step making video of the ground-up custom Birkenstocks, which offers an extremely cool and deep look into the process.
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This episode was sponsored by Standard & Strange