And definitely take a listen to his conversation with Ben and Ticho on the Stitchdown Shoecast-it should open your eyes to the industry in a powerful way.īedo’s Owner Steve Doudaklian is a master cobbler with multiple SSIA awards (most recently earning the 2019 World Cup) and one of the most skilled and respected craftsmen in the industry today (over half the cobblers we spoke to recommended him for this guide). If you’re interested in learning more about the cobbler industry, Jim has been heavily involved with the Shoe Service Institute of America (SSIA) for several years (he previously won the SSIA Grand Silver Cup award for his exceptional repairs), and is also a knowledgeable historian of shoe repair. Now in its third generation of family ownership under Jim McFarland, McFarland Shoe Repair is about as trustworthy as cobblers get, especially on delicate jobs or for high-quality upgrades like Triumph toe plates, JR soles, and blind channel stitching. If you know and love a shoe repair shop that you think should be in our guide, just shoot us an email at and we’ll check ‘em out. Of course, we’ll be continually adding to it and keeping it up to date as best as we can.
We’ve kicked things off by highlighting cobblers in the USA and Canada, and we’ve started expanding it to include cobblers from all around the world. Our goal is to have this guide be a living document.
This guide is by no means exhaustive, but we believe you can send these cobblers your shoes and boots with the peace of mind that they’ll be in extremely good hands. The cobblers included here should have little trouble tackling whatever jobs you throw at them. But things really started to snowball when we asked those cobblers to recommend folks they thought deserved to be part of this list. In terms of methodology, we started by polling the Discord and reaching out to some of our most trusted friends who have had the most work done on their shoes to find cobblers who have top-notch craftsmanship and customer service. That’s why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to put this list together. You owe it to yourself, and your shoes, to find a cobbler who’s skilled at their craft. You don’t want someone who’s just gonna slap an extra layer of rubber over the worn-out stuff and call it a day. With fewer skilled cobblers left in the US and abroad, the trick is finding one who can do the job right, especially when it concerns the high-quality Goodyear welt, etc footwear that we live by here at Stitchdown. According to cobbler and shoe repair historian Jim McFarland, in the United States there were about 120,000 cobblers in the year 1928 today, that number has dropped below 4,000. The shoe repair industry today isn’t as thriving as it used to be, to say the least. Your shoes get damaged, or they get run down, or you’re just looking to spruce them up…where are you gonna send them? Well, you gotta find a good cobbler for that. Not just in the Stitchdown Premium Discord, but pretty much everywhere online shoe dis course occurs. We see questions like these asked all the time. “I’m thinking about using my Paraboot Michaels for a multi-state hike through the Appalachian Trail because I’m a highly dedicated Tyrolean reenactor who is also deeply devoted to funky style and I want to slap some Vibram 100 soles on them. “Do you think my heels need to be replaced?” “My dog got my boots…anyone know a good place that can repair them?”
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