Footwear
From South Australia to Savile Row: R.M. Williams for Drake’s
By Drake's
Jul 13, 2022
The story of Australia’s most renowned boot began on the Gammon Ranges some 90 years ago. The largest mountain range in South Australia, it’s a hot, craggy and unforgiving environment; the outback. A tough place for a man to make a living, especially in 1932, with the onset of the Great Depression looming large. It was there that Reginald Murray Williams, a young well digger with a family to feed, met Dollar Mick, an itinerant saddler with a million dollar name, who would change RM's life — and the future of high quality leather boots — forever.
A self-taught genius in leatherworking, Dollar Mick passed on his skills to the 24-year-old RM, who made and sold his first pair of riding boots for 20 shillings to a man from nearby Hilltaba Station. Soon word spread around the rural outposts of a young man with a small workshop crafting made-to-order boots for ranchers, riders and cattlemen. Boots that could take a hiding and handle daily life in the Aussie dust bowl.
Today, R.M. Williams is a global brand, but its boots are still made following those original principles. Eighty pairs of hands still pass over each pair; they're still hewn from a single piece of high quality leather and the ethos - that a pair of R.M. Williams are an investment, a boot that can take a hiding - remains.
Here at Drake's we've long been admirers of R.M. Williams, sharing a similar philosophy of quality, care and making things that last for a really, really long time. we present the Gardener boot, it features that signature single-piece leather craftsmanship, a rubber welted sole, padded heel lining and double branded tugs. Available in black calf leather, brown greasy kip leather and, exclusively for Drake's, tobacco or brown suede. It's a boot for a cattleman and a man about town. A boot built to last and a boot that, we're confident to say, old Dollar Mick would approve of.