Each and every piece of Thursday footwear is handmade over the course of several weeks, in an arduous but rewarding process. While many footwear companies cut corners, Thursday invests the time and effort into manufacturing boots that last a lifetime with proper care. To create the best products, we employ highly trained artisans with decades of experience. As an owner of one of the industry’s largest independent footwear factories recently explained, “Thursday takes a very serious approach to quality. They pay very close attention to the details. They don’t read a quality report and set it aside, they dig it apart.” While our competitors often use lower-grade leather, cheaper hardware, and skip quality control inspections, we have a lot riding on the success of our final product — literally. 

1

Design

We start by asking our customers what they want. We collect feedback through surveys, in-person conversations, social media interactions, and several other channels. That data is handed over to our designers, who use it to create timeless styles as beloved today as they will be in 50 years.

The designs enter a review process. Many designs won’t make it past the first review, but the ones that do are poured over for months.

Once a shoe’s design has been finalized and approved, we send our factories a “tech pack,” which includes all of the shoe’s specs, down to the size of the lace holes, which they use as a map for the physical product.

2

Plan & Source

We work with our factories to determine our exact material needs for production.Once we calculate quantity, we order the leather, soles, hardware, and laces from our suppliers throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Italy.

3

Produce

When the materials from our sub-suppliers arrive at the factory, we inspect them, unpack them and prep them for the production process.

We unroll the leather, cut off a piece about the size of a shower curtain, stretch it out, and flatten it.

We then trace the boot’s pattern, avoiding any imperfections like scars, scratches, and wrinkles — any part of the leather that you wouldn’t really want on footwear.

We cut the pieces and skive (flatten) the edges, so that they aren’t too thick when they overlap during the stitching process.

After cutting, we take the leather pieces of the boot-to-be’s upper and sew them together.

This big piece of patched-together leather is given a soft leather lining, using both glue and stitching.

Very carefully, the eyelets are hand-punched.

The flat hide is now given new dimension by being sewn together in a shape roughly resembling a sole-less boot.

The big piece of leather is then molded to a last, which is a piece of plastic or wood resembling the shape of a foot.

Using a lasting machine, the leather upper is uniformly stretched over the last, and the excess leather hanging off the bottom is trimmed.

The bottom of the upper, still on the last, is given a welt strip along its underside. This strip is a long and skinny piece of leather, which will eventually connect the upper to the sole.

A ply rib layer is added to give the boot a border for a supportive layer.

Within the boundaries of the ply rib, a steel shank is hammered in, and cemented in place with liquid cork.

Once the cork has partially dried, it’s smoothed to ensure even distribution.

The midsole is the next layer, which is a DuraEVA comfort strip — often used in athletic shoes because of its ability to absorb shock — or a piece of thick leather, depending on the model.

We then adhere the outsole. Whether it’s made of leather, rubber, or both, the outsole is the outermost layer of the sole.

The whole sole is reinforced to the upper using a Goodyear welt, which means that stitches are made through every layer of the sole to the welt strip.

Using a grinder, the sole is trimmed down to a uniform shape.

A footbed is then inserted into the boot.

A finishing cream is applied to the upper’s exterior.

The laces are applied.

The boot is checked for quality.

4

Packaging

A little known fact is that our footwear is boxed in the factory, instead of at the warehouse. Our boots are put in plastic bags, placed in a box with a “thank you” note, and given a final inspection.

The boxed boots are then sent off to the warehouse.