About IO
An image printed on a mind, that shifted a life
Before Imminent Occurrence had a name, before there was a workshop, before there were samples, lasts, leather stacks, production delays, and all the strange machinery of making something real, there was a simple feeling: sneakers never felt like the whole story.
When I was younger, I did no twant to wear sneakers. I was drawn to dress shoes and boots. They had shape. They had intention. They changed how you stood, how you moved, and how you felt. Throw a pair of boots on with any outfit, and now you're dressed.
When I was about nine, my grandparents, with the help of my mother, bought me a pair of black cowboy boots. I loved them. I also understood quickly that anything different gets noticed, especially by children. Difference has a sound around it. It makes people look twice. Sometimes that is the point. Sometimes it is the price.
The missing boot
As I got older, I became more interested in tall boots. Not costume boots. Not military boots pretending to be rebellion by the yard. Not disposable synthetic shells held together by glue and attitude. I wanted something with the presence of a tall boot and the honesty of a real piece of footwear.
The problem was obvious: for women, tall boots are everywhere. They exist at every price point, in every mood, from everyday to elegant to wild. For men, the choice narrows almost immediately. Tall boots tend to fall into a few predictable categories: military, goth, industrial, cosplay, or inaccessible high fashion. Too often the affordable options rely on lower-grade synthetics, glued construction, and shortcuts. When something looks well made, the price often floats into another atmosphere.
The image that stayed
More than twenty years ago, on a summer trip to Spain, I saw a young man walking across the street in tall explorer boots. It was a passing moment, but it stayed with me. The image felt almost dreamlike: practical, romantic, strange, and completely natural at the same time.
I did not know what they were called. I did not know where to find them. For years, searches for tall boots for men turned up the same narrow results: costume pieces, fantasy references, military leftovers, or runway objects that felt designed to be admired from a distance, not worn into the world.
Trying to make them
Eventually, I started searching for a way to produce the boots myself. Spain and Portugal seemed like natural places to begin. But the deeper I looked, the more I saw the same problem in a different form: corners being cut, minimums too high, prices that made small-batch production impossible, or cost structures that would force the final price beyond what felt honest.
That mattered. Every unnecessary cost eventually gets passed to the wearer. If the goal was to make tall boots with integrity, then the process had to carry that same integrity. The price could not just be a costume for the object.
León Guanajuato, Mexico
León, Mexico is known as one of the great leather and bootmaking centers of the world. I believed that if these boots could be made with authenticity, craft, and a more direct relationship to production, León was the place to try.
It was not easy. We spent months waiting on unfinished samples. As production got closer, prices would double. Deadlines slipped. Factories stopped responding. Each near-miss taught us something, but it also made the original idea feel more fragile: make strong, expressive, small-batch boots without turning them into unreachable luxury objects.
Why we started our own workshop
After years of false starts, we decided to take one last shot by building the workshop we had been looking for.
Our workshop exists to make small-batch Goodyear welted boots with greater control over quality, materials, timelines, and working conditions. It is our answer to a market that often treats men’s tall boots as either costume, uniform, or fantasy. We want them to be real footwear: expressive, durable, wearable, and made by people whose work is respected.
We are not interested in fake heritage or luxury theater. We are interested in honest construction, thoughtful design, fairer production, and boots that feel like they were made for people who have been searching for something the market kept refusing to give them.
What we believe
- Tall boots should not be limited to military, costume, or runway categories.
- Quality should come from construction and materials, not inflated mystique.
- Small-batch production can be more accountable, more human.
- The people making the boots matter as much as the people wearing them.
- Difference should not have to apologize for itself.
Imminent Occurrence is for the wearer who remembers the first thing they put on that felt like theirs. For the person who has been searching for a boot that exists somewhere between memory, utility, elegance, and refusal. For the person who knows that what you wear can be armor, invitation, signal, and private weather all at once.
We make boots because the pair we were looking for did not exist yet.