Often, vintage clothing and footwear's defining quality IS quality. As in, its actual construction and materials, how well it was made, way back when. In most cases, it wouldn’t even be here today if it wasn’t.

The footwear world we explore on this podcast is absolutely the exception, and a beautiful one, to the core rule of the 21st century: most stuff we buy and use and wear today is, well, kinda shit. It’s made to break down, or just break. It’s SUPPOSED to go into the trash, so you just get get more. Vintage is a reminder that things weren’t always that way.

Exploring why most clothes and footwear used to be great, when most simply aren’t now, is just one of the reasons I was so excited to chat with Brian Davis, who’s been finding and selling some of the absolute best vintage menswear and boots for over 15 years.

Brian’s store Wooden Sleepers, located in Tuckahoe New York about a 40 minute train ride from Manhattan, is a time capsule of American military, outdoors, Ivy, and workwear, all of it still kicking hard. Brian’s got a whole bunch of thoughts on why, and why that changed—as well as a fantastic outlook on the current vintage landscape, shoe tribalism, materials that age beautifully, and his absolutely wonderful local cobbler, Frank.

https://wooden-sleepers.com/

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2025 dates and location for Stitchdown's Boot Camp 3—the world's fair of shoes and boots and leather and more—coming soon.

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