Can Anyone Make Adelante Boots?

When we met Nick at Stridewise at a tannery in Mexico, we had a question for him: for a guy who has reviewed dozens of boots on YouTube, isn’t it about time you make a pair yourself? 

One flight to Guatemala later, he appeared on our doorstep with some goatskin leather, ready to make a pair of our famous Havana boots. His deadline was to make a pair in five days with zero prior experience: cutting the leather, sewing it, lasting, welting, and more. 

Fortunately, Adelante employs full-time videographers so we were able to have Jose record Nick around our various workshops, filming his journey so we could bring you this very special film on his YouTube channel: How I Learned Bootmaking in 5 Days (In Guatemala). Take a look below.

(If you don’t have an hour to spare, you can see the shortened version here — but the full length film is perfect for anybody curious about how much labor goes into our footwear.)

When it was all said and done, we had two boots: one made by Nick, and one made by our own craftspeople. These craftspeople followed the production process alongside Nick, showing the right way to make a boot. The other boot is 100 percent made by Nick’s hands, and, well… it wouldn’t have passed our quality control, but it’s definitely wearable and tells the story of its making!

For a fun look at everything that went right and wrong, take a look at his follow up video Everything Wrong With the Boots I Made. 

We had a great time hosting Nick and introducing him to the Adelante family, all of whom were impressed with the work he did. What about you? Do you think you’d be able to keep pace with our craftspeople? Check out the film and decide for yourself.