Rossi x Bush Journal - Apr 2023
The boot maker
You’ll have to excuse Matt Howson if he doesn’t look you in the eye—he’s just checking out your shoes. “I look at people’s feet all the time,” the 52-year-old says with a laugh. As the factory production manager at Rossi in South Australia, and a lifelong boot maker, this habit comes with the territory.
When he was 15, Matt’s family moved from far-flung Alice Springs to suburban Adelaide, where he struggled a bit at first. “I didn’t really like school in the big city,” Matt says. So he left school and undertook a four-year boot making apprenticeship at the factory where his dad was also a boot maker, and his mum worked in administration. He took to it straight away. “I actually picked up the award for the boot making apprentice of the year,” he says proudly.
He was immediately drawn to leather “because it’s natural” he says. “I grew up in the Northern Territory on cattle stations and I’ve seen where it comes from, and I really appreciate the effort that goes into it—it’s beautiful.” Decades on, he still loves the feel and smell of leather. “It’s hard to explain,” he says, trying to convey the satisfaction he gets from his trade. “Crafting something with your hands brings out the creativity in you.”
Matt joined the Rossi family two years ago, and loves it. He oversees the production of the Australian company’s iconic boots, where much of the process is performed by machinery. But he says there’s still a lot done by hand, especially in the early stages of design. “You hand draw the patterns, you cut [the leather] out by hand,” he says. “A lot of it is very much hands on.” The time it takes to make a pair of boots with a new design depends on how quickly the style is refined and locked in. “It can take a week or it can take two months,” Matt says.
He believes more people are seeking out hand made goods these days. “You’re getting something that lasts longer, that can be repaired, that’s not disposable,” he says. “I think people are really starting to appreciate the work that goes into these things.” And he emphasises the importance of supporting Australian-made products in a shaky industry. “It’d be easy to give in and let the big overseas companies take over, because it’s hard to keep Australian manufacturing going,” he says. “But if people support it, we can do it.”
Matt doesn’t describe himself as fashionable, but he enjoys keeping up with footwear trends, and loves seeing his boots on the street. “When I see someone wearing a pair of Rossi boots, it stands out like a beacon to me,” he says with joy. “You feel like going up and asking them how they’re going with their boots!”
He has no plans to ever leave the industry. “I’ve been in it for too long, I can’t really see myself doing anything else,” he says. “I want to be remembered as a boot maker, someone who could take a piece of leather and turn it into a boot—simply that.”