WillyMocs: Handmade Shoes

Willy O'Neal began making shoes back in 1959 with a prominent shoe company in Maine. In 1985 he started a business focused on people to whom comfort and fit is a priority. His wife Barb came on as a full-time shoemaker in 1993 after a 20-plus year nursing career.

Using top-quality leathers, hard-won experience, and a fine craftsman's pride, each pair of WillyMoc shoes is custom cut, hand lasted and handsewn in the little mountain community of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho.

It take years of dedicated skill to create a beautiful, handsewn shoe that is both functional and unique while being incredibly comfortable. Willy keeps the high art of shoemaking alive with his well-practiced ability to read the leather as he builds the customer's shoe a stitch at a time around the shoe last (a last is a model set-up to match the customer's foot).

Our shoes are carefully customized for each customer by using customer-supplied measurements and tracings, including arches and widths. This custom-made process allows for the choice of style, colors, soles, and leather types—leathers that include the always beautiful and interesting ostrich and crocodile.

All orders and measurements are kept on file to insure our customers are provided exceptional and individualized service.

Even though Willy is one of the few shoemakers still sewing by hand, he proudly preserves the craft he learned more than 50 years ago.

Willy and Barb travel to fine, juried art shows around the country to display their line of quality handsewn shoes and to take orders to be handcrafted throughout the year.

Willy & Barb O'Neal
P.O. Box 254, Lava Hot Springs, ID 83246
(208) 776-5008
willymoc@willymoc.com