Footwear to go with our jackets

I think it's a question of getting the right engineer boot for your foot. My Red Wing 2268's are more comfortable than many of my lacer boots. With engineer's, as with any pull on boot, getting the fit right is extremely important because you can't adjust the fit by tightening down laces.

I recently bought a pair of sneakers for the first time in roughly a decade. I don't wear them often but there are times when I'm out with my kids and don't want to be weighed down by a pair of heavy boots.

I love engineer boots, and I'm extremely jealous of the beautiful ones I've seen here and on Denimbro. I have a pair of Fryes...But....I don't find myself grabbing them that often. Wolverine 1000mi are my goto for boots. I'm hoping to work up to a pair of White's SD soon. Other than that, I'm usually sneakers or flip-flops

I bought a pair of sneakers last week for fun after this thread. Got them to match my two Woolrich shirts both in the same pattern, but one heavy wool, one cotton flannel.
They're cool, and I'll see how I feel wearing them.

New engineer boots- especially with cuffed jeans- look too attention-grabbing to me, like I'm watching Kenneth Anger's 'Scorpio Rising'. I think it's the buckles and the jean turn-ups with the exposed ankle-leather. With a jacket too, it's just too much leather. They sorta beg the question: 'What did you come as?'. The question could probably be averted with the addition of leather trousers.

Superfluous said:

To my subjective eye, engineer boots look too purpose built for mainstream wear. They look like they were built exclusively for a locomotive engineer / fireman (coal shovel man) or a motorcycle rider. A polypropylene wet-suit might be fantastically functional in a rain storm, but I nevertheless would not wear it around town because it is purpose-built for ocean activities. Yes, this is an extreme example, but it nevertheless illustrates my subjective perception of engineer boots. When I see engineer boots, I think locomotive engineer / fireman or motorcycle rider, and I perceive a disconnect when the boots are paired with something other than a locomotive or motorcycle ensemble. I cannot emphasize enough that this is simply my own subjective perception, and nothing more.

The other significant obstacle for engineer boots is their generally lack of comfort and functionality. The typical response: "You get used to them." I don't want to wear something that is fundamentally uncomfortable and non-functional, but I will hopefully get used to over time. Sneakers are inherently comfortable and functional, and need no "getting used to." Ditto lace-up work boots. Moreover, many never "get used to" engineer boots and abandon them precisely because they are uncomfortable and non-functional.

Lace-up work boots are more comfortable than engineer boots. Likewise, with one possible exception -- riding a motorcycle -- lace-up work boots are equally, if not more, functional than engineer boots. Therefore, putting aside motorcycle riding, there is only one reason that I can surmise for wearing engineer boots over lace-up boots: a desire to emulate the locomotive engineer/fireman style. This brings me full-circle to my initial point.

All of us have inherent subjective perceptions . . . . we look at the same things through different glasses, and the overlay of our unique glasses impacts our overall perception. There is no denying the talent and craftsmanship evoked by a stellar pair of engineer boots. That said, they will never broach my wall of sneakers.



^ This

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Well said. I guess I just never really associated them all that much with bikers and actual train engineers, but I suppose if I did, then I too would not be able to shake that notion out of my head and it would make them look strange.

My equivalent example is combat boots. These have become more mainstream in recent years, but I still cannot help but associate them with soldiers and white supremacists. The same goes for anything camo. I have seen people where camo as civilian clothing and I really do not like it, so I understand where you are coming from. I appreciate you sharing that.

The comfort thing is also a good point. Personally, I do not find sneakers that much more comfortable than any boots. To me, all footwear is uncomfortable, but I certainly understand why many people find any boots too uncomfortable.

@El Marro very true! Thanks!

dudewuttheheck said:

Well said. I guess I just never really associated them all that much with bikers and actual train engineers, but I suppose if I did, then I too would not be able to shake that notion out of my head and it would make them look strange.

My equivalent example is combat boots. These have become more mainstream in recent years, but I still cannot help but associate them with soldiers and white supremacists. The same goes for anything camo. I have seen people where camo as civilian clothing and I really do not like it, so I understand where you are coming from. I appreciate you sharing that.

The comfort thing is also a good point. Personally, I do not find sneakers that much more comfortable than any boots. To me, all footwear is uncomfortable, but I certainly understand why many people find any boots too uncomfortable.

@El Marro very true! Thanks!

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Keep in mind that combat boots became associated with fascists during the early 80's when these spineless decided to fully adopt the skinhead style. Originally skinheads had nothing to do with racism or nazism. I personally like the skinhead typical outfit a lot, ben shermans, fred perrys, solovair, ma-1s. I used to wear these even when my hair was down to my elbows.

Engineer boots...I've tried to understand them, but I can't.
It's the same as flight jackets. Real fighter pilots never spent hours looking at themselves in the mirror wondering if their jacket fit 'correctly' and taking and sharing pictures with other pilots.
If you're an engineer, 'engineering' or a grizzly old biker biking, then that's fine. Otherwise it's just a costume.
I wonder if real railway engineers pay 1000 bucks for boots that are custom made over some months, and then share pics with their engineer friends, or if they bought the cheapest boots and treated them like dirt?
It's like people who buy Leica cameras who aren't professional photographers. Real photographers use cheap cameras.
One of the most interesting things about TFL is how much people appropriate workwear that they have no intention of working in. Is a 1000 dollar workbook you don't want to scratch still a workbook? I would say it's a costume. I'm not trying to dis anyone, I'm just trying to state an observation about how far these things have departed from their original purpose.
I wear Danner boots a lot, converse when my feet are tired, and New Balance when actually training.
Living in Japan I always stick out like a sore thumb, so I'm desperate to get some RocketBusters cowboy boots just for the totally 'in your face' Americana aspect of it (yes, that makes it a costume).

Big engineer boot fan here, don't like cuffs though

And yes, I'm the man that does buy expensive boot to work in

These are cool. I like the look of boots that have been well worn, broken in, polished over and over, and become shaped to your particular foot:

I have no problem with people not liking engineers. I love them and luckily for me, my girl loves them too so I'm all set.

The one counterargument that I will say is that most clothing items are ones that were meant for a different purpose than we use them now.

Converse were originally basketball shoes. Jeans were originally blue collar work clothes. Baseball caps were originally meant to keep the sun out of your face. I could go on, but you get my point.

Everything is costume to some degree, though I will admit that some items are more costume than others. I wear a grizzly jacket and engineer boots as many days as I can and I know I look ridiculous to many people, but to me, a guy going to the grocery store in running shoes and a tracksuit is just as much in a costume as I am, even if mine is more noticeable. You can say it's all about comfort, but I find myself far more comfortable in my robe, pajama pants, and slippers/bare feet so why don't people go to the store wearing that?

I may be overreacting to this and I understand some of the points raised here, but a LOT of clothing has been re-appropriated over the years. However, like I said, engineer boots do stand out more so I understand why they are called costume more often.

@dude, no, you're not over-reacting, it's a good post. You're right, so much clothing has been repurposed.
I think the thing is that you're self-aware about it. I am too. When I have to go to a meeting, and it's raining, so I wear a trench coat and a fedora because I hate umbrellas, yeah, I hear other people make negative comments sometimes. I'm aware of how this looks to others who don't understand the history and cultural baggage of my clothes.
It's ok and it goes with the territory. Those who know, know.
What I'm trying to get at is if there's the kind of inverse relationship between utilitarianism and symbolic value that Hobspawm & Ranger talk about when they describe the anachronism of U.K. High Court judges wigs, of the only way to identify a Guards umbrella is when it's carried rolled up (i.e. useless).
I wonder if these boots (for example) only have appeal as symbols of what they represent rather than because of their utilitarian properties, and if owners themselves are aware of this paradox.

Harris HTM said:

Keep in mind that combat boots became associated with fascists during the early 80's when these spineless decided to fully adopt the skinhead style. Originally skinheads had nothing to do with racism or nazism. I personally like the skinhead typical outfit a lot, ben shermans, fred perrys, solovair, ma-1s. I used to wear these even when my hair was down to my elbows.

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It's a shame it has that link for so many people now. I'd love a nice MA1 myself, though the Boss worries about the idea of me wearing one in green because I shave my head. I was once taken for being a skinhead by an actual skinhead in a pub in town - I was wearing boots, jeans, and a sky-blue Harrington jacket. Wasn't a problem then, but I can see how it could be (especially if the wrong sort spotted the 'smash Nazis' badge). Such a shame, because it was, in my opinion ,that last truly strong, British street youth cult look; nothing else since has come close to that early 80s look. Apart from the goths, but that was never quite so accessible to the masses.

Big J said:

Engineer boots...I've tried to understand them, but I can't.
It's the same as flight jackets. Real fighter pilots never spent hours looking at themselves in the mirror wondering if their jacket fit 'correctly' and taking and sharing pictures with other pilots.
If you're an engineer, 'engineering' or a grizzly old biker biking, then that's fine. Otherwise it's just a costume.

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Flight jackets are an apt comparison. I've never really felt much different between wearing an A2 and a motorcycle jacket / boots (though that said, I'm hoping to buy a motorcycle in 2018/19.... I'll never be a pilot).

The repurposing thing in intersting: I've never immediately associated a Perfecto style with motorcycles (for all we called it a 'biker' jacket as kids) for the simple reason that by then it had taken on a whole new set of cultural symbols - for me it was an Alice Cooper jacket, a Joey Ramone jacket, long before it ever became associated in my mind with Johnny Strabler and his Triumph...

Engineer boots, actually, are a case in point with regards to repurposing: they were originally safety footwear for engineers working on stesm trains, and firemen keeping the engine's coal fire stoked.... those early motorcyclists who adopted them for lack of purpose-built motorcycle footwear were repurposing them every bit as much as non-riders who wear them these days. Of course, one might argue that the later version is an aesthetic appropriation rather than utilitarian repurposing, but it's an intersting line of consideration.

I wonder if real railway engineers pay 1000 bucks for boots that are custom made over some months, and then share pics with their engineer friends, or if they bought the cheapest boots and treated them like dirt?

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Obviously not. I suspect there weren't the same kind of cheap boots around as we have nowadays; relatively speaking, they'd have paid more for something closer to out better boots these days (though, again relatively, less given that part of the price inflation these days is down to these boots being made in much smaller production runs than would have bene the case when this sort of footwear was the norm).... Nonetheless, the general drift of your point is fair.... This is why I've lnog had a rule for myself that I simpyl won't buy something i I'd not be prepared to wear it out as intended because of the price. Within reason, obvs: I won't delierately abuse my nice boots. They certinly get worn, though.

It's like people who buy Leica cameras who aren't professional photographers. Real photographers use cheap cameras.

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Well, real photographers can certainly get vastly better results out of a cheape camera than I might out of a Leica, though the only people I've ever knon to buy Leicas have been pros who buy them for the job because they can justify the outlay. I'd love a Leica digital, but they're six grand!! If that was my job, fine, bu otherwise....

One of the most interesting things about TFL is how much people appropriate workwear that they have no intention of working in. Is a 1000 dollar workbook you don't want to scratch still a workbook? I would say it's a costume. I'm not trying to dis anyone, I'm just trying to state an observation about how far these things have departed from their original purpose.

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I'd say that's true of pretty much anyone buying these things - jeans were once solely workwear.... though, of course, spending Japanese brand money on a pair of jeans and then treating them like an expensive suit (I'll never quite get my head round the idea of "smart jeans for going out") is quite another thing. Ultimately, though, once you go beyond the very basic utility clothing for decency and warmth, isn't alomst everything costume once aesthetics come to be a primary concern?

Dav said:

And yes, View attachment 97825 I'm the man that does buy expensive boot to work in

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Lovely colour. What are they? Look a little like Aero's boots, but those have a 'democracy buckle' at the top.

Big J said:

What I'm trying to get at is if there's the kind of inverse relationship between utilitarianism and symbolic value that Hobspawm & Ranger talk about when they describe the anachronism of U.K. High Court judges wigs, of the only way to identify a Guards umbrella is when it's carried rolled up (i.e. useless).
I wonder if these boots (for example) only have appeal as symbols of what they represent rather than because of their utilitarian properties, and if owners themselves are aware of this paradox.

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I think you're right in that once we move beyond the purely utilitarian and into making aesthetic choices, it becomes very much the case that people are projecting a chosen image of themselves. Consciously or unconciously, the choices we then make are inevitably connected to associations we have with those items of clothing. People might perceive workwear as fundamentally honest, decent, associated with the days when a working man could make a fair living at the factory; today's knowledge workers in their IT pens might even identify consciously as the modern equivalent of a 1930s factory worker (to some extent fairly; my dad started his working life at 16 in the PYE radio factory making trannie radios; my brother started work almost forty years later, writing code for one of the most globally successful software products in the early days of mobile internet. Ultimately not all that different in a sense... Maybe knowledge workers sometimkes subconsciously want to identify with Real Working Men of the past as a reaction against some of the notions out there that they don't do a "real" job or such. Then it can be tribal - rockbilly, punk, whatever....

The psychology of clothing really is fascinating.

Edward said:

Lovely colour. What are they? Look a little like Aero's boots, but those have a 'democracy buckle' at the top.

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They're Wesco Boss's with a steel toe and no ankle straps.

@Edward, I absolutely agree, the psychology of clothing is fantastically interesting.
I'm 'here' accidentally by way of my Ph.D research; the nature of authenticity. There's no right or wrong about it, but it's fascinating.
People always wonder why the Japanese make such good vintage US military and workwear. A large part of it is cultural fetishization (and we do the exact reverse to them; Micheal Douglas in Black Rain springs to mind), but the larger part is that while post war US factories were cost cutting, economizing and streamlining, their unneeded production line machinery was being sent to Japan as part of the US plan to make Japan a Cold War anti-communist bastion of capitalism. This is why all those expensive to make high cost 'ring spun' shirts and sweaters are coming out of Japan, along with all those NOS replacement zippers, knits, and even fabrics. We sold them our 'obsolete' machines.
But looking back further than that, the vegetable based blue (indigo) dye for blue jeans (so iconically American) came from Japan after the opening of the country back in the late 1860's. It's the same dye used on kendo gear because it's a natural antiseptic (as is wasabi, which is what you want in your raw fish to kill bacteria). This makes it great for sparring clothes where minor cuts and grazes are common, but also made it the perfect color for workwear such as denim, worn by workers in industrial environments where minor injury was common.
What's interesting is that as jeans have become everyday wear, and not work wear, this expensive dye that fades so beautifully is now shunned for cheaper chemical dyes, because the antiseptic property is no longer required.
So now, even though that antiseptic dye isn't necessary, it's highly sought after and paid extra for. Symbolic value.

@Edward, you're last point made me chuckle, but it is spot on. A lot of these artisan made, high cost repro workwear items aren't made for authentic real genuine blue collar guys, nor could many of them realistically afford them. Rather they are made for, and marketed to, white collar professionals with high disposable incomes. So yes, maybe they serve as 'identity signifiers', a kind of 'virtue signaling'? A kind of, 'Yes, I went to college and work in a sterile office detached from nature and would NEVER dream of doing a job where I actually got my hands dirty, BUT the job I do is as essential to the smooth everyday running of your world as coal mining and coal shoveling was 100 years ago'.
Yeah, I can see that.

Please stop referring to people who do physical work as if they were a thing of the past and a historical curiosity. We still exist, even if we appear invisible to people who work inside, and the world could not run without us. As the old saying goes, " Even on the space station you still need someone to clean the toilets."

Dav said:

They're Wesco Boss's with a steel toe and no ankle straps.

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Ah! Interesting. The deletion of the ankle strap gives it a different look, more industrial, somehow, if that makes sense. THat brown is such a rich colour, it's fantastic.

Big J said:

@Edward, you're last point made me chuckle, but it is spot on. A lot of these artisan made, high cost repro workwear items aren't made for authentic real genuine blue collar guys, nor could many of them realistically afford them. Rather they are made for, and marketed to, white collar professionals with high disposable incomes. So yes, maybe they serve as 'identity signifiers', a kind of 'virtue signaling'? A kind of, 'Yes, I went to college and work in a sterile office detached from nature and would NEVER dream of doing a job where I actually got my hands dirty, BUT the job I do is as essential to the smooth everyday running of your world as coal mining and coal shoveling was 100 years ago'.
Yeah, I can see that.

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I'm sure it's mostly subconscious, but I think it is an element - and true, of course.

Mark Ricketts said:

Please stop referring to people who do physical work as if they were a thing of the past and a historical curiosity. We still exist, even if we appear invisible to people who work inside, and the world could not run without us. As the old saying goes, " Even on the space station you still need someone to clean the toilets."

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Oh, absolutely. I don't think anyone intended to be dismissive of manual labour. It is very much still around - if much less visible here in the UK, certainly, where we no longer have any working coalmines, manufacturing is all but extinct, and unless one grows up in the Midlands where the remaining car assembly plants are, it's entirely possible to go through life never knowing anyone who has worked in a large-scale factory. The one remaining, truly big industry in the UK that relies primarily on manual labour is probably construction. Mostly it's a service economy, with all the more manual jobs buried in that (under-represented and under-paid, typically).

Big J said:

Engineer boots...I've tried to understand them, but I can't. . . . If you're an engineer, 'engineering' or a grizzly old biker biking, then that's fine. Otherwise it's just a costume.

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This was my point (although you stated it much more cogently). In my entirely subjective opinion, engineer boots look like part of a costume. Have you ever seen an “old west” family photo, where all of the family members dress up like they are from the old west, and the photo is shot against an old west backdrop, in a vintage style – that’s kinda what engineer boots evoke for me.

dudewuttheheck said:

Converse were originally basketball shoes. Jeans were originally blue collar work clothes. Baseball caps were originally meant to keep the sun out of your face. I could go on, but you get my point. Everything is costume to some degree, though I will admit that some items are more costume than others.

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The difference is that sneakers, jeans and baseball caps have become ubiquitous and mainstream, and thereby transcended their original purpose. Today, everyone wears sneakers, jeans and baseball caps. Thus, the genesis of these clothing items has become irrelevant, and very few people associate these items with their origins.

dudewuttheheck said:

I wear a grizzly jacket and engineer boots as many days as I can and I know I look ridiculous to many people.

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Dude, you have style! Don’t ever compromise your style for the masses. Instead, continue your bold and unique style without regard for what uninformed sheep might thing. You understand it – they don’t.

dudewuttheheck said:

I have seen people where camo as civilian clothing and I really do not like it.

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No argument here.

Edward said:

I think you're right in that once we move beyond the purely utilitarian and into making aesthetic choices, it becomes very much the case that people are projecting a chosen image of themselves. Consciously or unconciously, the choices we then make are inevitably connected to associations we have with those items of clothing. . . . The psychology of clothing really is fascinating.

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Well said!

Big J said:

@Edward, you're last point made me chuckle, but it is spot on. A lot of these artisan made, high cost repro workwear items aren't made for authentic real genuine blue collar guys, nor could many of them realistically afford them. Rather they are made for, and marketed to, white collar professionals with high disposable incomes.

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So true. Ironically, artisan repro workwear is not accessible to many who genuinely need workwear. The men and women who wore the original articles – that inspired the reproductions – would no doubt have a good laugh if they saw how their utilitarian clothing had evolved. I suspect they would view the majority of us as imposters.

There's lots of work wear that is affordable still - just not posted up on instagram or forums - Dickies, Carhartt, etc.
"Work wear" is a fashion niche - and often expensive one.
I love it, but having family from the most blue of blue collars roots, I sometimes feel really conflicted spending the money I do for certain items.

It's all poseur to some extent, isn't it? We're all donning some sort of costume as our fashion statement. The nice thing is that there are many choices out there, and we can and should all appreciate what each here offer up. I can appreciate something without liking it. Sometimes I don't like things for odd reasons like cost, the guys wearing it, the non-existent sizing for big guys, etc.

It's fun here because there's something for everyone.