Shoes: Boots, Sneakers, Army, Evening
Boots, Sneakers, Army, Evening
Today’s top-of-the-range mountain boots are high-profile, lightweight wonders. They support the ankle, provide grip and traction, keep the feet warm and dry, yet allow them to breathe. The moulded soles and articulated uppers of these designs – all conceived for serious hiking and climbing expeditions – have been created to function rather than to flatter. Yet as the shape of some of the sneakers across this page hints, there is a contemporary intersection between the technical fearsomeness of these boots and the almost baroque clumsiness of what’s cool in mens shoe shapes now. Wear a pair of these bad boys this winter and you’ll be nodding to the oversized fugly trend that’s been on the rise for the last year or so, while doing your feet a favour too: these boots represent perfect new-season shoe authenticity.
To say that sneakers are cool in the city is to state the obvious. What’s less apparent is precisely which sneakers are cool, and why. The Nike Air Max 95 is for sure 2018’s key revival sneaker, a minor masterpiece of shoe design that merits its moment in the sun until it is supplanted by whichever style rises next year. J.W. Anderson’s sunny collaboration with Converse is just the latest example of the Chuck Taylor All-Star’s infinite versatility. Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello, Gucci, Kolor and Maison Margiela present fresh fashion iterations of the dad/fugly - but will they be as remembered 30 years hence as the Air Max 95 is now? Adidas’s delicately-moulded low-profile Sobakov, meanwhile, looks like an appealing contender for a new-season sneaker that feels freshly forward-facing.
There are two categories of mountain boots in menswear footwear. The preceding spread presented the best of 2018’s state-of-the-art designs - mountain boot equivalents of the latest 4x4. This one presents the best new season old-school luxury mountain boots - the equivalent of a tricked-out Land Rover Defender. All-leather uppers and Vibram (or Vibram-style) tractor soles make for a mountain boot that’s much more classical in appearance. No mountain explorer worth his or her salt would choose a pair of Versace mountain boots to wear out of basecamp. But for urban explorers with a fondness for classically robust styling these boots are an appealing midwinter option which, as Jimmy Choo’s hybrid design most explicitly suggests, aren’t made for the mountains at all.
Slippers, derbies, monkstraps or brogues. Patent, crocodile or velvet. Black? Almost certainly. Single welt? For sure. Evening shoes remain a low profile classic in the masculine shoe wardrobe, an essential that every man absolutely needs at least one example of - even if only for weddings. Church’s and John Lobb present ideal versions of the no-frills but exquisitely evolved made-in-Northampton English evening shoe: if you intend to have only one pair, point your feet in this direction. Corneliani’s patent leather and Dolce&Gabbana’s embroidered uppers point to a less puritan iteration of the evening shoe that’s built for exhibitionists (and absolutely not for funerals). Santoni and Moreschi’s detailing both represent a more classical expression of evening extravagance for habitués of night-time action.