D.W. Frommer II

History

D.W. Frommer II was a bespoke boot and shoemaker in Redmond, Oregon. Shoegazing (3 February 2023) reports he was born in 1946, learned western bootmaking in Montana under Mike Ives, devoted his life to the craft, and in his last decade or so also made bespoke men’s dress shoes; he published three books, trained students, and died on 31 January 2023 of a heart attack at age 76.

A 2013 profile in 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, written when he was 67, places the shop in Redmond, prints his motto “No plastic, no paper, no nails,” and says that after attending the University of Minnesota and serving as an Army paratrooper in Vietnam, he apprenticed with a saddlemaker in Albany, Oregon, then studied bootmaking with Mike Ives in Billings, Montana, for a couple of weeks in 1976. His wife, Randee, stitched uppers in the shop. Sources differ slightly on the month of his death: Shoegazing gives 31 January 2023, while a bootmaking-schools listing says he “passed away February 2023.” Paul Krause, in a 2019 interview, said a book by Frommer carried him through his first pairs in the 1990s, and that in 2006 he spent three weeks studying the two-piece boot with Frommer directly.

Sources

• Jesper Ingevaldsson, “Reflection – R.I.P. D.W. Frommer,” Shoegazing, 3 February 2023
• Christina Cooke, “Shoemakers Row,” 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, November/December 2013
• Jennifer June, Bootmaking Schools, updated 28 April 2023
• Jennifer June, USA bootmaker list, updated 2 May 2024
• Paul Krause interview, The Cowboy Bootmakers, 25 April 2019