Our Components

What is inside a boot matters as much as what you see from the outside.

At IO, we make most of our internal components from leather. That choice is slower, more demanding, and less common than it should be. A lot of modern footwear hides cheap plastic parts, synthetic innards, filler materials, and shortcuts beneath a polished exterior. The boot may look traditional from the outside, but inside it can be built like a temporary object.

We do not want our boots to work that way. Our goal is to make boots with internal structure that belongs to the same world as the leather upper: strong, repairable, honest, and made to be worn.

Leather where other brands use shortcuts

Most IO boots use leather for the parts that give the boot its structure and life underfoot. This includes high-quality leather midsoles, leather soles where applicable, all-leather heels, and a custom-dyed leather shank.

If a design uses rubber on the bottom of the sole or heel, we use natural rubber. Rubber can be useful where grip, weather, and daily wear matter. But even then, the rubber is not there to disguise weak construction. It is there because the design calls for it.

Actually stitched, not made to look stitched

We live in an age where many things are glued together and then made to look stitched. The appearance of construction gets sold in place of construction itself.

Our boots are actually stitched. The stitching is not decorative theater. It is part of how the boot is built, held together, and made serviceable over time.

The 2/3 welt

Most of our designs use a 2/3 welt, a construction approach commonly seen on cowboy boots. Instead of running the welt fully around the entire boot, the welt runs around the front and sides while leaving the arch area exposed.

This allows for a more elevated view of the shank beneath the sole through the arch. It gives the boot a specific profile: cleaner through the waist, more sculptural under the foot, and truer to the tall boot language that informs much of our work.

Hendido Americano

We use the Hendido Americano process to add the welt directly into the leather midsole. This is different from constructions that rely on a cardboard rib or synthetic substitute sewn onto the insole so the boot can be marketed as Goodyear welted while cutting deeper corners inside.

For us, the point is not to chase a label. The point is to build the boot in a way that gives the materials, the stitching, and the structure real work to do.

Nails, pegs, and secure construction

You will find wooden nails, metal nails, and secure fastening used in the construction of the heel and sole. These details are not decorative. They help lock the structure together and make sure the boot holds its shape and integrity through use.

Every part has to earn its place. The heel, the sole, the shank, the midsole, the welt, and the upper all need to work as one object, not as a costume of separate parts.

YKK zippers

Where our designs use zippers, we use YKK. It is a well-known and trusted international zipper brand, and we use it because zippers are one of the places where quality cannot be treated casually. A beautiful boot with a weak zipper is not a beautiful boot for long.

Why this matters

Internal components are easy to ignore because most customers never see them. That is exactly why they matter. Hidden parts reveal whether a maker is building for the photograph or for the foot.

IO boots are made with leather, stitching, nails, natural rubber where appropriate, and construction choices that respect the object from the inside out. The aim is not nostalgia. The aim is honest footwear.