From South Australia to Savile Row: R.M. Williams for Drake’s

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. 

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