I want my boots back.

Surely squaddie boots from any army surplus shop fit that bill for a reasonable price?

‘Squaddies’ wear either Meindle Desert Fox boots if they’re out in the Middle East, or a dark brown smooth leather hiking-type boot, and the (in)famous German para boot is bloody difficult to find these days. Both have a foam-type midsole that can and does turn to dust after a few years of wear, and are almost impossible to resole, two of my four pairs of Desert Fox boots have had this happen, and the uppers are still perfectly good to wear. I did only pay no more than £38 for any of them, while retail is £169, but I’m still annoyed about it.

The soles of my para boots disintegrated walking on gritted pavements as did my Blundstones.

I went to Solovair a couple of years ago after many many years of Doccies.
The welting failed at about 12 months, not the end of the world but not great given the price; then I took them and and the spare soles I bought at the same time as the shoes to the local cobbler… who refused to fit them. So that was all a big waste of time and money.

I’m back in DMs and perfectly happy to pay for them as they remain the only shoes that don’t fail under my weight for 10 hours a day at work within a few months. Somehow, the sizing has changed a little recently, and I’m now a size smaller than I was for the previous 30 years!

the-muffin-man
Full Member

Not sure how people are getting more than a couple of years from DMs – IME the sole wears smooth after 18 months or so when wearing daily.

I’ve never worn a sole out- they’ve always cracked first (and worn out around the back of the toebox on top)

They are bloody artisan boots – essentially handmade in the UK!

TBH honest unless they’ve started building shoes with robots they’ve always been handmade and labour intensive which is why the work went abroad.

There’s also a time element as well,you can’t just make them that quick,they have to spend a certain time hanging around on trolleys of metal feet.

I worked(well babysat the mainframe) in a shoe factory till the land was worth more as houses 🙂

Have a pair of DM’s as well, love them

Had some Blundstones back in the 90’s that lasted years, bought pairs for me and other half a few years ago and the soles just disintegrated, came off in huge chunks, here’s with minimal wear as well. Friend had similar experience.

My guess is that the solvents used back then worked better but fail elf and safety rules these days.

(Found a tin of 1990’s Nitromors I’d forgotten about the other day, the good shit. Just waiting to use it in anger on an oak table top I picked up.)

I’ve been thinking of buying some DM’s again. Used to live in them as a yoof in the 90’s. Always had the black ones but this time gonna go for the cherry red ones!

So, the moral of this thread is that there are two versions, and the one to buy is the handmade in UK version. Is that right?

Edit: As a side-thread, I got weirdly into cobbler videos on Youtube, weirdly hypnotic and amazing to see the amount  of work that goes into repairing shoes. There’s a couple of American brothers called Trenton & Heath, and a suitably weird Japanese guy that I can’t remember the name of.

The cool kids were wearing Converse All Stars 🤷‍♂️ back in the 70’s 🥺

they brush up quite nicely

Wonder if Alexei still wears them…

Happy memories of DMs – think I paid £40 for my eight hole ones, then went to German para boots like Klunk’s ones for a while. DMs were pretty much unisex in the 90s.

spent hours with the felt tips inking the DK logo on mine

Dorling Kindersley?

Also: how about Monkey Boots? Similarly sackcloth ‘n ashes in approach, hopelessly permeable, possibly made comfortable with footbeds. I’m wearing a pair now with some spare / rando Planet X footbeds. They’re simple and not massively uncomfortable.

I bought some recently as a throwback to my youth and found the toe box to be tiny and the heel massive it was like pushing my foot into a traffic cone.

I lolled 😀

Blundstones back in the 90’s that lasted years, bought pairs for me and other half a few years ago and the soles just disintegrated, came off in huge chunks,

That was an issue that occurred when they initially moved production off-white. Supposed to be fixed now. DMs were notorious for the same problem a few years back.

There are models of the Blundstones that are leather-lined though. Same with Rossi and Redbacks. If Chelsea boots are your thing the you could do worse than the latter 2. Both made still in Oz, apparently.

Dorling Kindersley?

In case that was a serious question, the Dead Kennedys:

https://winstonsmith.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/dk-logo.jpg

Nice and simple, like that for Crass.

The cool kids were wearing Converse All Stars 🤷‍♂️ back in the 70’s 🥺

I wear them now

Got 3 pairs of DM’s on the go at the moment and I’ve always had a pair since the mid 70’s.

Only buy the ‘Made In England’ range now, the cheaper ones are poor quality. Mrs Spursn17 has worn them for years and they look great on her, despite being an old bird now 😉😂

They are bloody artisan boots – essentially handmade in the UK!

Well , some of them are. The made in England ones are clearly made in England. But that’s only 10% of the company’s output and you have to search them out. They come with an extra £40 or so on the ticket price. Your bog standard DM is made in Taiwan. Whilst I quite liked the Gregg Wallace programme (apart from it having GW in it obvs) they nicely skirted around that – a good PR coup for Dr Martins. Every unthinking BBC watcher will have gone away from that programme thinking buying a pair of DMs would be supporting English craft workers. Mostly not.

That said, I can’t imagine the process in Taiwan varies particularly in technique or quality from the setup in Wellingborough. Edit – though the post above clearly thinks there is a difference!

Same with Rossi and Redbacks. If Chelsea boots are your thing the you could do worse than the latter 2. Both made still in Oz, apparently.

Alas, Rossi are no longer exclusively made in Oz; I bought some hoping they were and sadly it turned out they weren’t.