Market for Maine heritage brand shoes growing in Asia — Business — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine

In fact, hand-sewn American shoes almost have reached cult status in a number of Asian countries.
“They want Made in the USA,” D’arcy Main-Boyington, Brewer’s economic development director, said recently.

Shoemakers in Maine — Highland Shoe Co. of Brewer, Rancourt & Co. Shoecrafters of Lewiston and Quoddy of Perry — that make traditional hand-cut and hand-sewn leather shoes are seeing a resurgence in popularity of their heirloom-quality footwear among overseas customers, many in Asia.
Highland annually makes around 25,000 shoes by hand for private labels such as Yuketen, Red Wing, Oak Street Bootmakers and Sperry Top-Sider Shoes and “50 to 60 percent of our shoes get shipped overseas somewhere,” company president Adam Sutton said recently.
Quoddy produces only its own brand of footwear. Every year it makes just over 20,000 handsewn moccasins, and 25 percent of those go to Asian markets.

Market for Maine heritage brand shoes growing in Asia — Business — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine