dirty boots

This season is a very childlike mix of frills and leather. If you put on fairy wings, a tutu and gumboots when you were five and allowed to dress yourself, now is the time to channel that inner child. Of course it’s a bit more sophisticated than that and I think I hit on the “grunge princess” note a few posts back, but it’s brought me to a serious question.

Do I need to pull out my 10-up Doctor Martin’s from wherever I might have hidden them? I’m almost scared that I left them in the cupboard of some previous flat I have no intention of returning to. I certainly hope not – even if I never wear them again I remember my dad buying them for me once I was big enough for my feet to have stopped growing and at around $200 a pop I knew even then that this was an investment boot. He’d be gutted if he knew I couldn’t locate them.

I wore them dutifully, despite not being the best in terms of comfort until appropriately worn in. Considering that my dad had been wearing his for 20 years or more I assumed the comfort level increased considerably if you persevered for long enough. Unfortunately these kind of find-and-retrieve missions in the storage room will not be conducted until I move house again. Which doesn’t seem likely at present.

But I digress. I did see one chick wearing Docs just the other night, but she may have been persistently wearing them for years without closeting them. The softer side to the hard-wearing trend is some kind of mash up between an ankle booty and a work boot. The older they appear the better, like you just pulled them out of the wardrobe from your days as a forestry worker. Or some such occupation.

Match these with a tulle skirt, lacy stockings and a leather jacket and you’re ready to go.

I must say I am enjoying the general fashion of now somewhat as it provides the opportunity to wear something flat into town without feeling like a complete pleb. Maybe this isn’t the case if you’re still going to Courtenay Place bars – Estab and the like – and you’re so young you won’t get served at the bar unless you’re in sky-high heels. But for more relaxed atmospheres – the cool bars, I will snobbishly add – a pair of keds or flat boots over tights will do just fine.

The problem with this trend – and the reason I am tempted to haul out something I already own to partake in it – is that I can’t see it lasting. It might end up being something we’ll cringe at a couple of seasons down the track and I’m therefore reluctant to spend any money on it – tight-fisted fashionista that I am.

Just thinking about it I reminisce about begrudgingly having to walk to the end of the garden to feed the chickens (dirty things that they are) and putting on my step dad’s pull-on work boots for the trip. They were awkwardly large on my feet, but they gave me a great sense of security that anything I encountered on the way could be squished without a chance of it actually touching me. Perhaps be wary of drunk and aggressive girls this winter with clompers on their hoofs feeling the same kind of fearless over-confidence.