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was born in Ontario but my family moved to Dunedin when I was six after my dad got a job at Otago University. When I left school I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I did a couple of arts papers and messed around for a year – let’s just say I wasn’t really focused – before moving to Lyttelton and playing fiddle full-time with Christchurch alt-country band The Eastern for about three years. I’d played since I was little and had all but given it up. But I became obsessed with Appalachian pp fiddling g– traditional old-time Amerrican fiddling – and really wanted to find ou ut more abo out it, so over the next few years I was back and forth betw ween Canada, tthe US, Austrralia and New Zealand. There’s ’s this aesthetic that goes with h the music; bo oots go hand in hand with h it. During my time in Christchu urch, I would ta ake my bootss to a little rep pair shop and d talk
to the owner about wanting to Lisa experienced some make shoes. They gave me challenges when she started my first job, part-time on the out; she is very generous in boot patcher, which is like an wanting to make it easier for old treadle sewing machine, today’s young bootmakers. replacing zips in ladies’ boots. I guess you could call it a I was doing similar work back four-month self-funded study in Dunedin when Lou Clifton, period. Lisa offered her space who had set up a shoemaking and resources and gave me free school, came in. We started to rein to work independently. At chat and Lou offered to teach the same time she would guide me the basics in exchange me through things. for me volunteering my time. To have this person showing It was through her I got to make me how to do something that the ladies’ Victorian boots for I’d had to scrape the bottom of The Luminaries mini-series. the barrel of the internet trying They were pearl-buttoned to find answers to was amazing. with scalloped edges. There’s so much you have to When Lou moved her shoe learn that you just can’t learn school to Wellington, I was left from a book – how a tool feels, to my own devices so I started how there’s an emotion in which trolling the internet, writing to your hands work. bootmakers overseas, reading There’s no room for messing books... It was pretty frustrating it up with cowboy boots. You because I really value the oldhave to be very exact about the fashioned hands-on teacher/ fitting because they pull on, apprentice style of learning. whereas with other styles, such as lace-up boots, you have room I felt like I was at a bit of a to tighten or loosen them. standstill with my skills. Lisa’s boots – works of art Lou knew I had interest in cowboy boots and put me onto really – start at $10,000 a pair. Lisa Sorrell in Oklahoma, one of That’s not necessarily a market I’m trying to corner, or one the best custom bootmakers I’d be capable of cornering at in the world, who has made any point soon! I want to go boots for people like Arnold somewhere in between art and Schwarzenegger. She names practicality – so something that all her boots after classic is beautiful but that’s also very country songs, so that was totally up my alley! It was a bit scary, but Flora traded a pair of custom I emailed her and asked , about learning opportunities. boots for a Harley having being It was about 18 months taught to ride by from the time I wrote to her US boyfriend. her to the time I got there.
Flora at work. Top: Her beloved fiddle is a gift from her father.
A once rundown garden shed is now a workshop filled with bootmaking gear, including lasts and industrial sewing machines.
