New Boots in the New Economy

Don't consider this a review so much as a commentary on the times.  But I will give a few suggestions towards the end.

I depend on my boots.  I spend a fair amount of time outdoors and in all weathers.  I don't care about looking stylish.  So roughly 80% of the time I'll be wearing hiking boots.  Over the years I've narrowed it down.  I like 6 inch boots, all leather, Vibram soles and of a quality sufficient to keep out water.  I wear them hiking deer trails, archaeological sites, hunting up geocaches and just up and down the hill on my daily walks.

A good pair should last four years.  Then I unceremoniously ditch them at the end of a trip.  My last pair ended up in the bin at a cheap hotel near the Newcastle airport back in May.

Good brands over the years have included QUAD, Danner and Lacrosse.  Interestingly they have all combined now into one company!

My shopping this time around began at the shoe outlet store on our main street.  Our town once made lots of shoes and boots.  But while the main company is still around everything they have now comes from factories overseas.  The combination of labor costs, perhaps the environmental issues with tanning lots of leather and the general American desire to have things cheap just made domestic manufacture impractical.

Several trips to the marked down "Back Room" and even to their main section were fruitless.  Since my last shopping experience there have been changes.  Honest leather boots are less common, with synthetics taking over.  And hard toe work boots comprise about 90% of the six inch boots.  We used to call them steel toes but you can also find aluminum and composites.  This is of no use to me as I already own a pair and don't need that extra weight/expense for daily use.

I visited several of the Big Box Guy Stores and found a similar picture.  Eventually I just went to the one with the biggest selection and tried on everything they had.  It was discouraging.

They did have a smattering of the more reputable brands.  Columbia and Thorogood make decent stuff.  But not in the styles or sizes that would be useful.  Instead there were shelves full of various "off brands".  Some are blatantly cheap looking....often the box looked sturdier than the boot.  One called AdTec was the worst.

One box I opened had a surprise.  The boots were covered with spots and droppings and a mouse had chewed a hole in one corner.  The helpful and apologetic store employee said mice like the paper stuffing that goes inside the boots.  To be a good sport I tried on another pair, one free of murine excreta.  The metal eyelet pulled clean off when I tightened the lace.

Eventually I had to compromise.  

This boot is partially synthetic.  Still mostly leather, it felt good on my feet.  I've worn them for a couple of weeks now and they seem to be breaking in well.  The "Brand Name" is Field and Forest,  but it is an import brand owned by Thorogood.  I hope I get three years out of them.

So what's going on in the boot marketplace?  

I suppose the consolidation of many of the surviving US boot makers has a tendency to reduce competition.  Most every such company now has a Chinese affiliate that makes their low end stuff, the stuff they'd not be willing to put their own name on.  Sometimes that low end is low indeed.  You read about various things going awry in the supply chain and/or in the Chinese economy, but here's some concrete evidence.

I guess the synthetics overtaking straight up leather construction makes some sense.  Sometimes technology can be both new and not total crapola.  But the weird swing to mostly safety toe work boots is hard to fathom.  It's not as if the US is suddenly rediscovering rust belt style manufacturing.

If it were we'd probably be making decent work boots on our shores again. *                                   ---------------------------------------------

* Fair is fair, some companies still are making work boots in America.  Thorogood which I've already mentioned, Redwing boots over in Minnesota, and to some extent the Lacrosse boot conglomerate all make domestic products.  So does Wolverine.  Keens are made in Portland Oregon which may or may not be part of the United States depending on your point of view.