CHAD MEETS OAK STREET - BOOTMAKERS

I met George Vlagos @ Bread & Butter, Berlin in the L.O.C.K. Fire dept. He is the founding father of

Oak Street Bootmakers. His father has a shoe repair shop in Chicago and in this shop he learned the craft of shoemaking from an early age. Today, George seeks to preserve the heritage of fine shoemaking through thoughtfully designed and attentively crafted shoes.

All Oak Street shoes and boots are handcrafted in the USA by shoemakers with over 20 years of experience. The highest standards of production are employed to yield shoes that are as durable as they are comfortable. Each pair makes use of replaceable outsoles, a feature normally reserved for formal footwear, to ensure a lifetime of wear. 

As Chicago is also home to Horween leathers it ain't a surprise that Oak Street shoes and boots are constructed from renowned Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel undergoes 89 separate processes taking 28 days and utilizing all five floors of the Horween facility in Chicago. Over the past 100 years very little has changed in the formula. Food-grade beef tallow, cosmetic-grade beeswax, marine oil, chrome salts, tree bark extracts and naturally occurring pigments are combined. The mixture is then applied using heat, steam pressure, the hands of craftsman and time. This ultimately yields the soft, supple and durable leather that is used for your shoes or boots.

FIRST DAYS OF SNOW, BE PREPARED

The first day of snow bringing my LL Bean duck boots out of the closet. These boots have along history, as an outdoorsman first and businessman second, L.L. Bean had returned from too many hunting trips with cold, wet, chafed feet. He wanted a comfortable boot that would stand up to the elements. As he would find out, he wasn’t alone. When he got a bright idea. “I was quite interested in getting the right kind of footwear for deer hunting,” he would write decades later in his autobiography, My Story: The Autobiography of a Down-East Merchant. “I took a pair of shoe rubbers from the stock on the shelves and had a shoe maker cut out a pair of 7 1/2 inch tops. The local cobbler stitched the whole thing together.” Thus, the Maine Hunting Shoe was born. 

CAPPELLO BROS. - FRACAP

History lesson

As a renowned craftsman Antonio Cappello opened his first workshop in 1908 in the country side of Monteroni di Lecce, Italy. Antonio left his inheritance to his two sons, Alfredo and Giovanni. In 1948 the two sons changed the name of the family business to Fracap, put together from FRAtello CAPpello (Cappello Brothers). In 1987, Alfred's sons, Anthony and Michael, took over the reins of the family business and expanding their portfolio by launching a line of shoes that became a rapid military success, ranging from the Italian Army, the Airforce and the Navy. Until a few years ago Fracap was known for only producing locally and for the Japanese market where they became a European favorite for their hiking boots. For Spring/Summer Fracap stick to their roots of boot makers, but also embraces the boatshoes, you can choose from different soles and along with that a full range of uppers, yes even a leopard print. For more info about the brand and where they are sold in the Benelux  fracapbenelux@gmail.com