The Story of Naang Boots
A Meeting of Creative Minds
Naang Boots was created by Allan Donnelly a Scottish shoemaker with over 20 years of experience making handmade shoes to the highest and most exacting standards and dana blouin a former engineer turned documentary filmmaker who has lived his life in boots.
Naang is a Thai word (หนัง) that means leather, the materials at the foundation of our boots, the very material that Allan has spent his life hand-crafting. However, in Thai the same word is used as shorthand for cinema, making it the perfect word to represent a brand founded by a shoemaker and filmmaker living in Bangkok, Thailand.
While Allan has spent much of his life around shoes, dana has spent the majority of his life wearing boots. From growing up in the northeast of the US and dealing with the long, cold, snow-filled winters, to hiking, camping, and mountaineering being one of his main hobbies for most of his life, and riding motorcycles being the other. For most of his adult life his work as a telecommunications engineer required him to wear boots on a daily basis as he climbed ladders, poles, and towers as part of his past job. As a filmmaker, the places dana has travled to and filmed in would not be possible without a solid pair of boots on his feet.
Function Over Form: Boots Built for Feet, Not Trends
At Naang Boots, design starts with the human foot—not fleeting fashion. Every curve, stitch, and cut of leather is built with one goal: keep you moving strong. A boot should support you, not squeeze you. That’s why our lasts are shaped with wide toe boxes inspired by the natural foot and the legendary Munson last—boots that let your toes spread, your gait stay natural, and your feet stay healthy.
We build every pair with 360-degree hand-welted construction. It’s slower, harder, and unforgiving work compared to modern shortcuts, but it pays you back in durability. A full welt stitched all the way around locks the upper, welt, and sole into one system, creating boots that resist water, flex naturally, and can be resoled again and again. This is how boots were built before “planned obsolescence” became the norm—and it’s how we’ll keep building them.
Inside, we use leather shanks instead of wood, plastic or steel. Leather flexes with the foot, supports your arch, and breaks in to your stride. Over time, it molds to you—quietly doing its job without the cold bite of steel or the brittle failure of synthetics. The result is a boot that feels alive underfoot, offering structure without sacrificing comfort.
Form follows function here. The beauty of a Naang boot isn’t in chasing trends—it’s in purposeful lines, heritage craft, and the kind of honest wear that comes from years on the ground.
What Sets Naang Boots Apart?
Each pair of Naang Boots is hand-welted. Unlike a Goodyear welt, where a canvas rib is cemented to the insole so the welt can be stitched to it with a Goodyear welt machine, each pair of Naang Boots has a channel hand-carved into the insole so the welt can be sewn directly to the insole by hand.
Speaking of welts, All Nang Boots are constructed with a 360-degree storm welt. The 360-degree storm welt adds a symmetry to the overall boot design, and the storm welt offers a bit more protection from the elements than a flat welt would.
All Naang Boots make use of a veg-tanned leather shank to offer the right balance of stability and flexibility for your foot. The allows for far more natural foot movement, while still providing enough support for daily wear.
While many boots will fill the cavity between the insole and midsole with cork. This material conforms to the foot quickly, but over time it will break down and can shift between the insole and midsole, and become uncomfortable. At Naang Boots, we fill that cavity with leather instead of cork. Leather will conform to your foot over time, just like cork, but will take a bit longer and won't break apart like cork. Once you have broken in a pair of Naang Boots, they will stay conformed to your feet for as long as you have them.
Walk With Us!
