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So in 1985,

Carrlyn and I were kind of

thinking about what was the future going

to hold for us.

And I thought to myself well you know I had

a chance to go to Houston

and be an orthopedic shoe maker

and I didn't want to do that.

And this is a year prior to to Charlie retiring?

Yeah this is this is this is a year

prior to Charlie

retiring and me buying the shop.

You probably didn't even know that was possible.

No I didn't. I didn't know it was coming.

You know, I didn't know it was coming

but I didn't know that

I needed to change something.

I was still I was at that point in my

life where I needed

something.

Like a new goal,

a new goal.

So I had a chance to go

to Houston and be an orthopedic shoe maker

and I didn't want to do that.

And and so

I came up with the idea of making a pair

of wholecut lace up shoes

and sending them to Lobb's in London

and maybe they would hire me

and I could go and work for them for a while

and then come back here

and continue on here.

And so I

sent them the shoes

and I got a very polite

refusal letter,

a rejection letter,

and they sent me the book "The

Last Shall Be First" autographed.

Sometimes the things that you don't get

are more important than the things you do get.

So I mean if I had if I had gotten

that job in

New Hampshire making hiking boots I wouldn't

be here.

And if I had gotten this,

I don't know,

I wouldn't be here either.

So I'm really,

at the end of the day I'm

where I should be.

When I first started out on my own after

I took over the shop,

I still had questions that I was

still looking for the answers to.

And of course I would read them.

I would look at books.

I read the book on Ferragamo

and I mentioned that earlier he dangles

the secret of the fit.

When Charlie would have a customer come in,

later on after Charlie was retired,

I would say

"How do your boots fit?" "Oh I love my Charlie

Dunn boots. They fit perfectly".

So I would say "Well let me go ahead

and measure your feet anyway just to make

sure that you have current

information".

So I would measure their feet

and then the cool thing,

which I don't know if you would call this reverse

engineering,

was I was able to take their last

that Charlie had set up

and compare it to the information that I had

just taken from their feet

and try and discover why it worked.

And the neat thing about anything

is if you can figure out why stuff works

then you unlock the secrets.

And so by doing that.

You know even though Charlie had left

and retired I still had

these unanswered questions.

By doing that kind of,

reverse engineering I guess

you could call it,

I was able to finally answer some

of the questions about

why things worked.

Have you ever seen a pair of feet that you couldn't make

a beautiful pair of boots for?

Never.

Never.

Because you can.

You know, I mean that's our job as

boot makers,

is to take a foot

and make the footwear

beautiful that fits it.

There's different ways of making footwear.

You can start with a given last

or a given model

and you can go ahead and you can alter that model

or you can start

with a larger version of the

foot

and reduce it until you're there.

There's there's one philosophy

in making

and then there's the other philosophy in making.

So we're starting with a given model

which I've designed,

it has all my knowledge in that model.

Everything I know to be good

and accurate

and helpful in that model.

And I start with that model

and then I alter it until

it becomes their foot.

So I'm actually

I guess it's additive

and subtracting.

Whereas with the other way of

making footwear,

where you're starting with a block of

wood or a larger last

you're actually subtracting.

What I like about my method is

that I don't have to reinvent the wheel

every time because when you're

doing that way ,where

you're starting with a block you're

having to reinvent the wheel each

time you do it.

Which does open up a can of worms.

Whereas when I do it from the

other way when I have a model that has

everything that I know

I'm starting from up close

or a point

and I'm not having to constantly reinvent

the wheel.

So they both have their negatives.

How many days will you spend building the last?

I spend two days on

every pair of lasts I set up.

So some makers,

some cowboy boot makers

will do five pair of lasts in a day.

So you compare that to me,

I'm much dlower.

And these are even custom guys.

Oh yeah yeah.

So it's all about philosophy.

It's all about what you believe

is the right way to do things.

How long does it take to make a pair of boots?

The average boot

takes takes 40 hours

to make.

We were asked to do in 1989

a pair of boots for Tommy Lee Jones

for the movie Lonesome Dove.

And there was a problem.

They needed the boots in four

days.

And they were waiting to start filming

till these boots were made.

So there we were

with four days to make those boots.

So if you watch the movie Tommy

Lee Jones is wearing him in the movie.

But really it's a 40,

the traditional boot is 40 hours.

40 hours and then over

how many how many days,

weeks or...

Well we don't work on one pair at a time.

We work on many pairs at a time.

And so while one is drying we're working

on others because they

do have to dry in the last

and you want him to be on the last a couple of weeks.

So we're we're never working on one pair.

We always have more than one pair

and we're doing.

Currently we have a four year backlog

and so we're not taking new customers

like we've made boots for your family.

We'll make boots for anybody in your family.

So you know we'll make you of

course multiple pairs.

So we try and it's a four year wait for that

first pair. You know we have a four year backlog

and that's we have two separate lists.

We have a reorder list

and we have a new customer list.

So the new customer is going to take four years,

and the reorder list is quite different.

So once we've made you

a pair it's a lot easier

to make you another pair.

You know,

and we want, we don't want to make the existing

customer wait four years

for another pair.

So we learned long ago

that we couldn't treat,

we had to have our existing customer list

and our new customer list.

And so because we have

so many boots to make,

and we're limited as to how

many we can make,

we out of necessity

we had to do that.

And you're doing all of the last making yourself.

I'm the only person here who measures

feet, sets up the last,

and draws the paper patterns.

And then everything else I have help for.

I mean my goal Kirby is

to have somebody

else creep

into the process to where

little by little I'm eliminated.

But right now that is

the current setup

and I love doing it.

I mean I love making boots.

You know it's fun.

It's everyday you go in.

It's kind of like sculpture.

It's a puzzle that you have to solve.

You know, the design work

is interesting.

You know Carrlyn and I work on everything together.

So nothing is made here without her

help.

You know, she sits down

with the customer.

She talks through the design.

She brings me in if I'm needed

to do artwork

and then I work with her on everything.

And so everything that I do,

she's involved in.

You know I show it to her.

I get her feedback,

see what does she think.

So even though she started out as a secretary,

she's an integral part of the shop.

I mean I feel very lucky.

And I feel an urgent

need to make sure that it doesn't stop

with me.

So I was lucky enough to work for

Charlie.

And so now I have apprentices also.

And so I'm hoping that they'll

take whatever Charlie

gave me

and take it forward.

And that I give to them.

I don't know. It's not right to say

it's a mission but I want to make sure

that legacy continues.

So do you see yourself as just merely a caretaker

of Texas tradition?

Exactly. I'm just I'm just

one part of the whole thing.

And I want to make sure that I

pass it on.

And I'm thrilled that there's

young people out there that want to learn,

that you know people are always saying oh what you

do is a dying craft

and you know it's going to die

with you.

But as long as there's young people

willing, you know wanting to learn,

and there are now

it will continue.

When I was a teenager.

The craft was,

you know, there was the return to the arts

and crafts.

And so I think

after that,

people were no longer interested.

And now there's a return once again

to the arts

and crafts.

Why does someone seek you out?

I mean why do you think someone travels all the way to Austin?

I think that

there's different reasons.

I think that you know that they

do their research

and they're interested

and maybe they have difficult feet to fit.

So they're coming to

us for that.

It also could be the historical part.

That you know Charlie Dunn,

me, they might be

enthralled

with the story

and come here for that reason.

I think ultimately the bottom line is

that doesn't change what we have to

do.

As boot makers, we have to,

everybody who comes in here,

we have to fit their feet

and make them what they want.

And that's the the bottom line,

is just to continue to do that

every day

and to make sure that

it continues after I'm gone.

I'm Kirby Allison, founder of The Hanger Project.

And we love helping the well-dressed take care of

their wardrobes.

Thanks for joining us today here at Texas Traditions

I hope you enjoyed learning about Lee Miller.

If you have any questions about what you saw in

the video today, feel free to ask them in the comments

section below.

I enjoy getting back to all those questions

personally.

Most importantly, if you enjoyed the video let us

know. Give us the thumbs up

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I'm Kirby Allison,

founder of The Hanger Project,

and thanks for joining us.