Collectors are a special bunch of people. Their passion is infectious and they’re always pumped to share their knowledge and experience with anyone who’ll listen. Dale, a military intelligence analyst and boot aficionado, fits this description to a T. With a collection tallying over 75 pairs of Goodyear welted leather boots. His knowledge and enthusiasm … Read more
More and more American brands are outsourcing their production overseas, and look, that doesn’t necessarily mean their products are becoming lower quality. Good and bad products are made in every country, and the producers’ nationality has a lot less to do with it than their business practices. But that doesn’t mean there’s no reason to … Read more
I was fortunate enough, in my own adventure, to find Ashland Leather. Recently I was also fortunate enough to literally find Ashland Leather, the business itself, as it is located on an obscured offshoot of Elston Avenue in Chicago about a half mile north of the Horween Leather tannery. I was fortunate, too, to be … Read more
Everyone knows that a great boot starts with great leather. But where does that leather come from? It starts with the expertise of the tannery, where raw hides are transformed into the highest quality leather through the alchemy of the tanning process. There are countless of tanneries out there — really, we’ve reviewed everything from … Read more
For those coming from YouTube, the discount code is just beneath the video↓ Joshua Bingaman had a storied history in footwear before launching Helm. His career had included managing (then selling) a chain of footwear stores and by the time he started this Austin-based outfit, he had racked up twenty years in the footwear industry. … Read more
Click around the internet and most articles on leather types split them into three categories: full grain, top grain, and genuine leather. Full grain is made from the top layer of the animal’s hide, top grain has the top layer sanded away, and genuine leather is reviled the most, since it has no grain and … Read more