Sweet Enlow

My favorite subcategory in a person’s wardrobe has to be shoes.  For some reason, I find myself sometimes searching for shoes that I don’t even need.  It is a weird obsession I guess.  In addition, and I know this is odd, but I find myself highly interested in women’s shoes, particularly boots and pumps.  Weird I know, but if  a girl wears tight heels, it turns me on incredibly.

This post, however,  is dedicated to the men’s side of footwear, particularly boots.  I am specifying boots because I feel at least one pair of great boots should be a staple of every man’s closest.  I personally have five or six different pairs that I love and wear 90% of the time.  Breifly, here is  a description of the types of boots I think every man should have

Tall Boots

Most consider “Tall Boots” to be Cowboy Boots – understandable.  If you are into that kind of thing then so be it.  I always feel it is better to express your own personal style than someone elses.  Being raised in Oklahoma, the Cowboy Boot prevalence, as consistent as clockwork, comes to the forefront of most wardrobes circa the first year of college.  This is fine, except that since everyone does it, it loses some originality.  If you are looking for good cowboy boots, I recommend “Lucchese.”  They are but one of many a great product coming from the Lone Star state.  Cowboy boots are fine in my opinion, but I prefer Square Toe Boots, particularly by Frye Company.  Here is a picture of a particular pair

While I am not exactly a big proponent of these particular pair, I think they provide a good enough example for what I am speaking of i.e. sqaure toe, overall shape etc…  With these particular pair, however, I do not like the harness and I do not like the rubber bottom.  Considering that, ddly enough, I have a very similar pair with a wooden bottom and no harness.  A great place to look for Frye boots is eBay.  In addition to simply Frye Boots, eBay is also a great place to look for vintage boots overall.  Generally, I would most often expect vintage boots to be much cooler than new…most of the time that is.  One of the best examples of someone who has great vintage boots is Dave Matthews.  He always wears these old boots to perform in and he looks real good doing it.

Ankle Length

I personally wear 25-year-old (literally) vintage timberland boots 75% of the time.  Dark Brown and ultra vintage, they go with anything and everything and always look good.  Mine are so old I was forced to buy a new pair so I could eventually replace them.  Either way, ankle length boots provide utility and compatibility.  Again, I would suggest searching eBay for vintage ankle style boots.  Here is a picture of my 7-eye Timberland’s.  Imagine 25 years of constant wear, completely worn out soles, and beat up leather and you get the idea of my current pair

Chuka

Chuka’s are a description of the type of length (ankle height) and the composition of the shoe (the shoe is basically two pieces of whatever material it is composed of).  The greatest example of Chukas are the famous (or infamous if you are a right-winger) “Wallabee” chuka boot by the English company Clarks.  Worn by every professor during the Viet Nam era and still worn by pseudo intellectuals throughout, these really are great shoes and incredibly comfortable.  They are likely the best casual shoe I can possibly think of.  In addition to the Wallabee, Clarks has a large supply of “Desert Boots” sometimes called “British Officer Style Boots.”  These are very similar to Wallabees in their composition but look slightly more hipster.  I have a pair of both and I love them equally.

 Boot “Dont’s”

• Stay away from the Hip-Hop Tims.  Everyone one knows these boots.  Unless your Jay-Z, just dont.
• Extremely pointy cowboy boots is no-go… purely my opinion however
• Don’t buy cheap boots.  Not only will they not hold up, they are noticeable in quality.

Recap

• At least one pair of great boots should be main staple of a man’s wardrobe… do not be afraid to spend a substantial amount.  You should be able to keep great boots for a couple of decades – as long as your not actually working on a ranch of something
• One of the 3 categories above listed are a safe bet to be looking appropriate
• eBay vintage boots searching almost always causes one to find something legit

http://www.clarks.com/

http://www.timberland.com/home/index.jsp

http://www.thefryecompany.com/

http://www.lucchese.com/

This entry was posted on November 10, 2009 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Style . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.