Why do Indonesian boots have such a strong following in the American boot market? Nick from Stridewise headed to Indonesia to find out.
Some of these brands, like Onderhoud, have such devoted fanbases that they can only select customers based on a lottery system, and the winners have to wait months for their boots to arrive. Larger brands like Sagara are able to produce a little more quickly: a whole ten to fifteen boots per week.
It’s all about the unusually old fashioned construction methods and materials..
Laborious Construction
The West Javan capital of Bandung, Indonesia, is known as the country’s creative hub. Full of artists, musicians, and craftsmen, the shoemaking history began when Dutch colonists brought over the artform in the 19th century.
And while the US boot industry has progressed to using machines, these Indonesian shoemakers preserved those 19th century methods.
“All of the workshops we met with were about as analogue as you can get,” says Nick English, the editor at Stridewise. “Most factories I’ve visited, like Trickers in England and Thursday Boots in Mexico, use machines to last and bottom their boots. But these Indonesian workshops use hand welting and hand lasting, which takes far more time — a Goodyear welt takes a minute, hand welting can take hours.”
Their job is made even harder by the fact that their American clientele really like extra stiff, thick, vegetable tanned leathers: two of the brands, Briselblack and Onderhoud, said that about 75 percent of the boots they make are made with horsehide, usually from Italy.“It’s my favorite leather to wear, but it’s hard to work with because it’s so stiff and thick,” says Adi Hermawan of Briselblack.
The hand lasting process also significantly adds to the production time. Modern brands use machines to pull the leather over the last, which is the foot-shaped mold that determines the fit of the boot. To last by hand is not only more laborious, it’s a skill that’s very hard to learn.
“Handlasting allows us to control the tension better, resulting in a superior fit and durability,” Bagus Satrio of Sagara Bootmaker told Nick. “When we handlast, we don’t use heaters or ovens to force the leather to mold to the shoe shape. We let them cure naturally, which takes about two weeks to mold perfectly.”
Tons of Customization
Another bonus is that the customer can customize to their heart’s content: if there’s a design in your mind for a boot you want, someone in Bandung will take on the challenge. You get Wesco levels of customization — this Pacific Northwest brand can make 309,586,821,120 configurations of a boot — at a much lower price.
Generally, prices range from a few hundred dollars for domestic leather to five or six hundred for Japanese and Italian horsehides. If they were made stateside they’d cost well into four figures. You can get more insight into this trip over at Stridewise’s article.
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