From the beginning on 1st April 1960, Dr. Martens boots are made exclusively from their Cobbs Lane factory in Wollaston, Northamptonshire after British shoe manufacturer R. Griggs Group Ltd. bought the patent rights from the boots inventor, Klaus Martens and Herbert Funck. Martens was a doctor in the Wehrmacht until a skiing accident which injured his ankle led him to create the prototype of what is to become the boots we known today. Griggs made a slight modification in the shape and added the iconic yellow stitching and trademarked the sole as AirWair. In addition, DM also licensed out manufacturing rights to several others to produce DMs on their behalf, all concentrated in Northamptonshire area. The most famous is NPS which stands for Northampton Productive Society, established in 1881 by five blokes as workers co-operative with joint ownership by local people. NPS collaborated with DM and provided the goodyear welt technology (all uppers are stitched to the welt) in order to fix the AirWair soft sole suspension onto each boot. This collaboration would last until when DM dropped them due to steady in flood of cheaper alternatives from 80s onward and their subsequent production line moved offshore to Thailand and China by early 2000s. No longer under license, NPS patented the Solovair brand, which is "sole of air" plus a help from a local businessman, Ivor Tilley to avoid the co-op from going under. Solovair is amongst the few British shoe manufacturers which survived the industry upheaval and still fully made in England. Others include Tredair, Grinders, Gripfast and Underground.
Production of Solovair boots are combined with traditional craftsmanship, hand made with latest technology from full grain leather. As such I am tempted into getting a pair from their sole distributor, British Boots Company online as previously, their accessibility is almost impossible. I have heard of Solovair here and there but mostly uninterested until, ironically and a 360 degrees turn in purchasing decision, I stumbled upon the Trent Reznor Combat Boots by Nice Collective. An ultra limited boots which retails for a wallet vaporizing USD1100, I don't know why as the two are totally unrelated but it led me to decide it is time to pull the trigger on a more affordable, albeit still on the mid upper range of pricing when converted into this country's currency, version of steel toe boots. As I have just bought a MIC DM, I am curious as to how Solovair would fare. I explored the British Boots Company website and singled out the 11 eyelet cherry red called "Englander" which comes with combat boots style sole and stitched steel toe. It arrived quite on time through post, and at first I was not quite happy about the really understated, understated box. It doesn't help that the box arrived in less than desirable condition. But once I opened the box, the beauty inside it almost blown me away. I immediately laced it up and tried it on. The leather feels good and again like the MIC DM, not cardboard hard but soft and supple. Require a slight break in but not as difficult as the old 90s DM and MIE DM I owned and tried on respectively (as well as Red Wing, which required a breaking in period). The tag on the back of the boots is green font on black background as opposed to DM's yellow. The sole is standard combat boots shape with the proudly proclaimed "Made in England" stamped on it as well as inside. The only curious thing about this pair I got is that it doesn't come stamped with "Englander" as shown on the website. Hhhmm. But it doesn't matter. And the question of quality between the two? Well, only time can tell. But a quick glance is that the Solovair leather has a more "shine" finish on it. Also the almost effortless breaking in required (in my case for this particular pair), would that means the quality is compromise? Probably not. And that's that. Time to stomp. Oi! Waaargh! Ha ha ha.
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