Inside the Indian Boot Brand Americans Are Falling For

Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India:  Blkbrd Shoemaker (stylized as “BLKBRD,” but we’re going lower case in this article) is an Indian brand that has been making waves in the US market not just for making resoleable boots for under $200 — they’re making hand welted and hand lasted boots at that price. Those are two rare, laborious, and skillful shoemaking methods that we’ll discuss in this article as we explore their workshop in India.

Stridewise’s editor, Nick, was fortunate enough to visit Uttar Pradesh on a whirlwind Asia trip and toured the factory with the company’s founders, brothers Pradeep and Sandeep Parihar.

Right off the bat, Sandeep cites the red-hot trajectory of the brand.

“India has a great history of making shoes, so when we started this brand it was with the motto ‘Made in India and Made for India.’ Initially, India was our primary market,” he explains. “But then, slowly, we got some attention from some international clients and began to explore more premium leathers.”

Our tour of this factory was unlike any we have been on before, so let’s get into it.

What Leather does Blkbrd Use?

Every good pair of boots starts with its leather, and Blkbrd doesn’t disappoint when it comes to choices.

They have something of a two-tier system: local leathers (for under $200) and premium ones from internationally recognized tanneries like Horween, Maryam, and CF Stead. Nick was wearing a pair of their well-known Dixon boots in that sub-$200 category.

If you’re willing to spend a bit more, the premium category offers you the kinds of leathers that boot aficionados get really excited about: Chromexcel (likely the world’s most popular boot leather), natural horse butt from Maryam (which comprises the majority of orders that Indonesian brands make for Americans) waxy commander from C.F. Stead (the classic example of suede that can take a beating), and more.

So, no, just because they’re known for sub-$200 boots doesn’t mean you can’t get something premium.

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Cow Leather, In India?

When Nick told people he was traveling to India to talk about boots, he often heard the same question: “What’s the situation with cows and leather in India?”

It’s a fair question: cow slaughter isn’t legal in every Indian state because the animal does indeed have religious significance in the country. Some brands we’ve seen will even avoid cow leather altogether and make boots from buffalo instead.  

“Cow leather is not illegal; we have to sustain the leather industry here in India,” Pradeep was quick to note. “The government has just banned the slaughter because of the sentimental values attached to particular species of cow. Cow slaughter is legal in some states of northeast India. It might sound funny, but that’s the fact.”

He told us that for the uppers used on their sub-$200 boots, the cows are slaughtered in other countries (mostly Egypt), and then the hides are shipped to India, where the tanning process is finished.

And nobody’s slaughtered a cow in India.

How Blkbrd Make Their Boots

Now that we’ve covered the materials, we’re going to take you along with us on our tour of the factory, from cutting the leather (much more complicated than you’d think) all the way to the finishing sand and oil.

Stay behind me, and don’t touch anything — or anyone!

Clicking

Selecting which parts of the leather get used for different parts of the shoe is its own skill, and it’s called clicking.

“For instance, the boot’s toe should be cut from the butt portion of the hide for its durability,” Pradeep explains. “But the toe break, that’s going to experience a lot more flexing than the toe cap, so we have to click for that.”

Clicking includes taking care to avoid scars, scratches, or major stretch marks — or clicking to make sure that such aesthetic defects are hidden. But there are more subtle elements as well: leather has its own grain and fibers that stretch more easily in one direction than others, and good clicking also includes using the right pieces for the right part of the upper and in the right orientation so that the fibers can stretch in the appropriate direction when the shoe is worn.

The next step is closing: when everything gets stitched together on a flat table in preparation for pulling it over the shoe’s last later on.

Heel Making and Cork Filling

Before getting to the lasting, our tour led us to the heel-making and cork-filling station.

You might be surprised to see sheet cork being placed under the insole instead of being troweled on as a mixture of cork and glue, which you might have seen in shoe repair videos on YouTube.

But using sheet cork allows Blkbrd to avoid mixing the cork with glue, producing a more breathable boot that Pradeep believes will mold better to the foot’s shape and provide superior cushion.

He’s also proud of the fact that Blkbrd’s craftsmen make their own stacked leather heels.

“With bigger factories, these heels might come in from another vendor who makes it for them, and they are then stuck onto the sole,” he says. “But our processes are all in-house, so we make the heels ourselves.”

Hand Lasting

Upon entering the production floor, one of the first things we noticed was that the craftsmen were largely sat on the floor, using their feet to hold the boots in place while they worked with their hands.

“We aren’t denying them a chair or stool,” Pradeep noted. “It’s their preference, their way of working! They are more comfortable working that way.”

The workers were hand lasting the boots. After the uppers are stitched together (the “closing” portion), they’re pulled over a foot-shaped mold (the “last”) that determines the size and shape of the boot or shoe. Every large factory we’ve visited, like Tricker’s in England or Carmina in Spain, last their shoes with machines, which grasp the shoe and pull the leather over it in a uniform manner.

So why last by hand instead?

“There are two reasons,” says Pradeep. “The first is that since this is a small setup, having machines is not feasible for us. The second reason is that hand lasting gives more control over the shoes. A machine has a programmed function, where it would grab onto the leather and stretch it, irrespective of whether the upper confirms to the shape of the last or not. Whereas with hand lasting, the craftsman can actually feel the leather conforming to the shape of the last. Because different parts of the leather have different amounts of elasticity and thickness and so on, hand lasting is more of an art.”

Hand Lasting vs. Machine Lasting

Man versus machine! A craftsman’s callused hands versus calculated, unrelenting metal. When comparing the two lasting techniques, the average person’s purchase won’t be swayed by which process is more artistic. They’ll ask which one looks better, and which one feels better?

The answer, according to Pradeep, is that hand-lasted shoes do indeed fit better, as they take the shape of the last very accurately — something that is not guaranteed in machine-lasted shoes.

While going the machine production route will streamline production and provide more consistency, the advantages of employing a more artisanal approach are greater customization and more precise fits. Leather was once alive, and each piece is different. Machines will simply pull each piece around the last to the parameters that are programmed, while a human can make fine-tuned adjustments as needed.

Hand Welted vs. Goodyear Welted Boots

Blkbrd is proud of their hand lasting, but their real pride and joy is the fact that their footwear is also hand welted.

Let’s backtrack (just a tad) to the 1860s…

At this time, your typical resoleable boots were hand welted. So, imagine the exuberance of shoemakers when Charles Goodyear invented the Goodyear welt machine, cutting down the time it takes to welt a boot by a significant margin.

And yet some makers and customers prefer the welting done by hand. Why?

“We will always be offering hand-welted boots because it has always been important to offer jobs to our highly skilled laborers and give back to the community in some form or the other,” says Pradeep. “How would people see a handmade sculpture or a machine-made sculpture right? People would definitely feel that handmade sculpture has a more human touch to it. People love wearing something that’s harder to make and that has been made with a lot of skill.”

Okay, but are they more durable or anything? As it turns out, yes, in Goodyear welted shoes, the welt is stitched through a strip of canvas that’s glued under the insole. In handwelted shoes, the welt is stitched through the insole itself: a channel is cut into it, a leather flap is pulled out, and you stitch through that.

Every cobbler will tell you they’ve opened up a pair of Goodyear welted boots to find that the canvas has come unstuck with wear; that’s just a risk of using a component that relies on glue. This doesn’t happen with hand welts, so you do get extra durability along with that extra artisinal touch.

“I’ve been making shoes like this for 50 years, and my age is 65 years,” says Man Singh, a craftsman Nick interviewed. “I learned these skills from my guru. I like making hand welted shoes: it requires a lot of skill, and I enjoy the challenge.

Finishing Process

So the boots get hand welted, then the outsole gets stitched on, then they’re trimmed so the sole better fits the shape of the boot itself. All that’s left is for them to be finished!

Pradeep describes this process as having a few different steps. 

“We clean the uppers, and then we use specialized waxes and polishes for each and every different type of leather,” he says. “This is where the leather gets extra conditioning and oils and buffing and shining. The edges of the sole get sanded and smoothed down, and also the edges of the sole and the stacked leather heel get conditioned, shined, and polished as well.”

On seeing cordovan being finished with what many call “the Cadillac of shoe care products,” namely Saphir’s Renovateur, Nick remarks: “You’re not giving anyone a chance to say, ‘they use cordovan, but it’s not Horween cordovan’ or, ‘they use Horween cordovan, but they don’t use Saphir on it.’ You’re actually ticking all the boxes here.”

Customization and Client Preferences

Pradeep noted that one of the Dixon boots on the finishing table was made on a different last because a client wanted extra toe room.

“So if someone writes to you and says they love your boot but they want two midsoles, or they love your boot but they want a wider toe box, you just accommodate people?” Nick asked.

“This is the upper hand that we have in owning a workshop, how we can compete with the top brands,” Pradeep responded. “People can come to us and get their boots customized as per their liking. We are pretty much able to accommodate everything.”

This led Nick to dub Blkbrd Shoemaker “The World’s Most Annoyable Shoe Brand.” If you’ve got anything special in mind, Blkbrd wants your business.

Wrapping Up

We love doing factory tours and getting a closer look at the processes behind the finished products.

With their detail-oriented craftsmanship and extra hands-on touch at every step of the bootmaking process, Blkbrd would be a rarity at any price point — and the fact that their hand lasted, hand welted boots can come in at under $200 is, as Nick says, “bonkers.”

When asked for any closing thoughts, Pradeep thanks his co-founder Sandeep and quotes his motto for Blkbrd: “The sky is the limit.”