Soldiers appreciate their sturdiness. Hunters wear them to keep warm during trudges along fence rows. Carpenters like the grippy treads: They come in handy on rooftops.
And hipsters don old-school work boots for parties and clubbing.
The American work boot — Red Wing, Frye, Timberland and more — has migrated from the farm and factory to the dance floor.
It’s part of the mountain-man aesthetic — full beards, flannel shirts, bushy hair — that during the past couple of years crept into, and then swept across, the style landscape.
The triumph of the working- man look reflects one of the principal themes of American life, circa 2010: the Great Recession.
“When the economy tanks, people go back to things that are authentic or real,” said Brian Moore, vice president of global men’s footwear at Timberland. “In the 1980s, you had hair bands and glam and neon, and when that crashed what came on the heels of it was grunge. It’s when these authentic brands took over. I think we’re in another wave of that right now.”
With fashion editors at runway shows walking around in Red Wings, boots designed for construction sites and steel mills, the look seems about as durable as the shoes themselves, said Micah Johnson, the style editor for Details magazine. The degree to which fashionistas are wearing something is one of the barometers he uses to measure how long a fashion will remain.
“I went to a party (in New York) in December for J. Crew. My friend walked in, and she works in fashion, and she was like, ‘Why does everybody look like a hunter?’ ” said Johnson, who grew up in Colorado Springs. “People were wearing flannel shirts, puffy vests. They had facial hair, and they had these boots on.”
The classic Timberland boot — wheat-colored, with caramel-hued laces — is not part of the movement, Johnson said. He says that people “don’t wear it off the construction site,” unless you are an urban guy who wears baggy jeans, in which case the boot is de rigueur.
But he described Timberland’s new line of work boots, called Abington, as “beautiful.”
Maybe. The Timberland Co., though, is gunning for the line to establish some credibility with the hipster he-man crowd. Beautiful- rugged? Whatever works.
The line honors the company’s original name — Abington Shoe Co. — and includes footwear meant to evoke different variations on a theme of tough. The boots: the hiker, the guide boot and the work boot. The spring line of Abingtons will include the desert boot, a shoe made popular by Clarks. That style of old-school boot, Johnson said, is especially popular right now.
“The Americana trend has become a global trend,” said Timberland’s Moore. “You see it on the runways. Authentic brands that stand for something real.”
“It’s hard to be cool”
The Abington boots are for “the hipster who wants to try something else.
“They want something that is harder to find,” he said. “It’s hard to be cool. You want to look different.”
Timberland has managed to pull off the “hard to find” aspect of the shoe. Select urban boutiques around the country sell the shoe. For most people, the best bet for now is shopping online, where they will cost between $120 and $180.
With fashion, Timberland doesn’t often try threading the needle, instead just plugging along with its line of functional boots.
But the current embrace of classic Americana has energized the company.
“For us, it’s a bit more of a New England sensibility,” Moore said. “We have things that are old-fashioned and pragmatic and functional, and they have weight to them, and you can smell the oil on them.”
New line for fall
The success of the Abington line persuaded Timberland to make the styles more widely available and affordable. In the fall, the company will launch New Market, another Timberland imprint that will have its own line of boots, which will echo the Abingtons.
No matter what style of boot you wear, fashion editor Johnson recommends pairing them with straight-leg jeans. The boot-cut, he said, is history.
Guys, he said, “should go into their closets and throw them out. I don’t see it coming back any time soon.”
Ken Izawa, a Boulder fashion blogger who recently moved to New York, said the work boot “extends from Williamsburg hipster kids to the fashion-forward Jane and Joe.”
One difference between the fashion-focused approach to the work boot and the original application, which centered on practicality (e.g., working in the steel mill)? The peacock factor.
When the hem of a pair of jeans reaches to the heel of the boot, the boot is shrouded in denim, and it can be difficult for the observer to distinguish between shoe and boot.
The fashionistas want everybody to know they aren’t wearing mere shoes. So they cuff their jeans high enough to display the boots.
Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com
