Resoling Boots with Brian the Bootmaker

Menswear sites like to talk a lot about the utility of welted boots, but we don't often take a minute to actually stop appreciate the resoling process itself. If you've ever been curious to see the work that goes into it, a young man based out of LA known as "Brian the Bootmaker" has been posting a series of quick and mesmerizing resoling videos on YouTube over the past year well worth taking a look at.

Brian first got into the footwear business back in 2010 when his grandmother sent him across the street to a shoe repair shop to buy some thread. Behind the counter, he found his now-best friend and mentor, Ignacio Palacios, constructing boots and asked if he could come by and watch him work on the weekends. It didn't take long for him to realize this was what he wanted to do, and since that day there hasn't been a day he's not worked on shoes in some way. What bore from that passion was a quest to develop the perfect engineer boots (which became the start of his own Role Club line of footwear), and a bevy of resole videos he's posted on YouTube showing featuring a number of familiar footwear models from makers such as Alden, Whites, Chippewa, Wolverine, and Red Wing.

Brian and his mentor, Ignacio Palacios

You can find Brian the Bootmaker on his Instagram account and his personal line of boots on the Role Club site, with current pricing around $980 for steerhide and $1145 for horsehide models. That's several degrees away from being attainable for most, but if you're the kind of consumer that can afford to dress in all RRL at retail (and does) or you just want a more personal product with the highest QC, these might be well in your wheelhouse. Otherwise, Brian also accepts boots for resoling, where you can select his personal RC soles featuring two arms with hammers, referencing working side-by-side with his mentor.

Aside from resoles, there are also a few videos on his channel regarding topics like shoe care, a Q&A session, and how shoe repair changed his life. One final note - Brian's workwear game is killer (how often do we ever see guys wearing workwear while actually doing work?), and he serves as proof positive that young guys can look good in brimmed hats.