About a year-and-a-half ago I went to the local thrift store, not looking for anything in particular, when I saw an old pair of boots. They weren't too remarkable; cracking leather, soles worn smooth, but with solid laces and in my size. The way I figured it, if they were beyond repair or fell apart I'd only be out a couple bucks, so I bought them and took them home with me. After dousing the insides with Lysol to avoid athletes foot from unknown persons, I started wearing them nearly every day. I got them resoled, and with regular oiling of the leather to prevent more cracking I've been wearing them ever since and hope to for as long as possible.
New leather boots are stupid expensive. A pair of cowboy boots I bought in high school were on sale and cheap as dirt for $127-- which is still a bit expensive-- but since they're a bit too big for me (and I'm not a cowboy) I don't really wear them anymore. All the lace-up boots I wanted before finding my secondhand pair usually retail for $250 or more, which was above my budget. The reason for that is that they're repairable; where a pair of $50 Vans can last maybe a year or two with regular wear before falling apart completely, a $300 pair of Red Wing boots can last way longer if maintained and resoled. My too-large cowboy boots have even been resoled, so they have a lot of miles to go if I decide to go all yee-haw with my style. While the upfront cost might cause some sticker shock, the money saved by not buying new shoes as often can add up.
There's also ecological impact; one source I found stated that roughly 300 million pairs of shoes end up in landfills. At least when leather is thrown out it doesn't produce microplastics like a lot of man-made materials do, so compared to an old pair of Nike's an blown-out pair of natural leather shoes won't have as great an impact by being thrown out (I think). By replacing just the sole and not the whole boot I can at least keep a bit of stuff out of the waste stream while keeping my feet from being bare. By getting a pair secondhand and repairing them I kind of succeeded in an eco-friendly-double-whammy since I'm both keeping a whole pair out of the waste stream and not requiring new materials to be used to make a whole new pair. Maybe now Captain Planet will give me a ring and make me a Planeteer like I've deserved.
My budget and morals notwithstanding, I mostly like how they look; well-worn dark brown leather, 6-inch shaft (hehe), no frills, simple, and timeless. I wear a lot of broken-in denim and plaid as it is, and I use pine tar soap and spruce-infused beard oil when grooming, so I might as well go for the whole damn aesthetic by wearing beat up boots. Give me an ax and a blue ox and I'd give Paul Bunyan a run for his money. Hand me an IPA and I'd fit in with most craft brewery crowds in a lot of hip-shit metropolitan areas. It's a versatile look in that way.
All this to say: I like my thrift store boots a lot. Like I mentioned in my last post I've been making an effort to downsize my crap and minimize consumption, and my old and thrift store wardrobe is part of that. I usually wear shirts from Goodwill to work, I do my best to repair clothes when they lose buttons or rip, and I've worn the same pair of jeans almost every day for over a year and the same t-shirts nearly every weekend for the last five or so. I've toyed with the idea of creating a capsule wardrobe to streamline getting dressed but, before I commit to having one signature outfit like a cartoon character I want to make it a point to wear what I already have until it isn't worth saving anymore.
That way, I can at least see how far I can stretch that $2 purchase.
