Thursday Boot Company Wingtips in Dark Oak

Thursday Boot Company makes a Wingtip Boot that they call....umm...well,...."Wingtips".

 

Mine is in a makeup that Thursday call "Dark Oak". When I first got these, I uploaded an unboxing video to my YouTube Channel called Bootlosophy and you can watch the unboxing here.

 

Now, before we get any further, you should know this was a Factory Second, that is, a below retail-quality item.

 

To quote Thursday's website,  "Factory Second" means boots that have minor imperfections but are structurally sound, and those that are "slightly less than mint condition" (sizing returns). If you watch my unboxing video, you'll hear me remark that I couldn't really see the faults making it a Factory Second, and about a year and a half later, I still can't really see the kind of QC problems that would have made these Factory Seconds.

 

But anyway, the end result is that I bought them for USD $149 instead of the listed full price of USD $235 dollars.

 

After I had them for about a year, I uploaded a review to my Bootosophy channel which you can watch:

 

 

 

Aesthetically, they are an elegant Derby lacing brogue boot. I'll go into the construction and materials later, but this Dark Oak upper, with its pebbled and smooth leather panels and mottling effect, make it quite a dressy boot to me. The dark colour, shiny leather, slim, sleek design, the medallion on the toe, the all eyelet lacing and larger quarters, the chisel-shaped toe itself - all create elegant lines that, despite the Derby or open lacing system -  I think can be worn with a suit.

 

Brogue shoes - shoes and boots with holes punched through in a regular pattern - and wingtips, shoes and boots showing the "winged" panels from toe to the sides of the vamp - have a strong connection with each other in history. Brogues are a 16th-century invention of, depending on how much whiskey you've had to drink, either Irish or Scottish origin that were designed for walking through the countryside on marshy, boggy land.

 

"Wingtips" merely refer to the winged design and not all wingtips have holes in them.

 

Eventually, they came together as "full brogues" and nowadays what we call wingtips are almost certainly full brogues, that is, they have the wingtip design, and they have brogue perforations.

 

The perforations were originally functional rather than decorative - they let the water out as you trudged through the bog so you didn't end up with a boot full of water. That's really why, especially in the UK, they are sometimes still called "Country Boots". In the 18th and 19th, and even in the early 20th centuries, a gentleman retiring to his country home for the weekend would go hunting and shooting - involving traversing wet ground and therefore changed into his brogues.

 

And that's why in some circles, people just don't see these as citified formal dress boots, but in my experience, that's completely changed in the latter half of the 20th century when old English boot makers like Trickers and Grenson, and eventually American shoemakers like Florsheim and Allen Edmonds made brogue shoes and boots in darker, dressy leathers. Some of them were even made with Oxford closed laces, but even the Derby styles still looked far too dressy to wear in the mud and snow crawling after game birds.

 

This Thursday version, while keeping all the elements of a full brogue boot, provides a dressier sleek profile.

 

 

Thursday Boot Company make their Wingtip in three colours, this Dark Oak, a lighter tan brown called Colour #77, and black. I think this particular Dark Oak is probably the most popular version of this boot because it will sell out from time to time.

 

They did make an earlier version that was more round-toed, like the Allen Edmonds Dalton, but their current version has this chisel toe with the toe tip that raises itself over the tip of the heel, creating an elegant overall shape.

 

 

If you don't know who Thursday are, they were started in 2014 by Connor Wilson and Nolan Walsh - two MBA students who identified a niche in the American boot market from their own personal problem of not being able to find a pair of boots at the right quality and at the right price that met the dress-cum-service--boot aesthetic. Already identifying that they wanted to leave grad school as entrepreneurs, they put two and two together when they realised that they could make their own boots, to the designs they liked, at a cost and quality they would themselves buy.

 

Thursday currently has a line of boots and shoes, made mainly in Mexico, but with a small line made in the USA. Using global market efficiencies in buying power and material sourcing, they're able to make good-looking, reasonable quality boots, at reasonable prices where most of their boot lines sell for just under USD $200.

 

You do get what you pay for though.

 

Many people complain that Thursday's quality is not as good as some other makes, but they often make those comparisons to boots that sell for the mid-USD $300 to $500 range. An unfair comparison in my view.

 

I think if you want that superior quality stitching or superior sourced leather, then you can pay that higher price. But for AUD $200 you get really good quality, compared to most anything else in that under USD $200 to $300 price range.

 

 

OK, enough of a history lesson, let's dive into the construction.

 

Let's start with the sole.

 

The outsole is studded rubber. If you're familiar with boots, you'll recognise that these look like Dainite soles. Dainite is a UK company that makes rubber soles, in particular, this style of studded rubber sole. You'll find them, or like these, similar types, under many boots because they are fairly grippy, comfortable and have a sleek profile. They easily replace traditional dressy leather soles because they are thin and don't look out of place indoors on carpet or in the boardroom.

 

This, however, is not Dainite but is Thursday's proprietary version. In the past, there have been complaints that they were too soft and sometimes led to chunks breaking off, but they seem to have fixed the particular composition of rubber they use. I'll talk about the comfort of wear later, but so far, I've had no problems at all.

 

The heel is a proper leather heel stack, not cardboard or wood, and it's topped by a rubber nailed-on toplift with the familiar Dainite-like studs and "horseshoe" shaped moulding.

 

I can't see details of it on their website, but I think this has a leather midsole between the rubber and the welt - it's thicker underfoot than the Thursday Captain anyway.

 

Inside, there is a cork midsole, a shank, and a leather and Poron insole. Let's break that down.

 

I'll talk about the welt in a minute, but the use of a welt in the construction means that there's a cavity formed - and this is filled by a cork filling. The ideal sole makeup is supposed to be a combination of cork and leather because both molds to the shape of your footprint over time to create a uniquely shaped and supposedly more comfortable footbed.

 

The shank is a hard piece of material, in this case, steel, but sometimes wood, leather, plastic or fibreglass that supports the arch. It's embedded in the cork filling between the heel and the pad of the foot. It supports your foot when you put pressure down so that the gap between the ball of your foot and heel doesn't sag down and cause arch tiredness.

 

The insole is the last part your foot stands on - sometimes called the footbed. In this case, like in many Thursday models they use Poron which is a kind of memory foam. Some people don't like this and prefer the cork/leather combination only - but frankly, I think it's great. It makes the boot feel totally comfortable straight out of the box. It's similar to slipping on a pair of new sneakers underfoot.

 

If we keep moving up the boot, the sole is connected to the uppers using a 360-degree Goodyear Welted form of construction.

 

 

Goodyear welt construction is where a thin strip of leather - called the welt - goes all the way around the edge of the boot. The uppers are tucked in and then sewn onto the inside edge of the welt. The outside edge of the welt is sewn to the mid and outsoles. You can see the stitching from the top on the edge of the welt, and from underneath, going through the outsole.

 

Sometimes, you can't see the stitching under the outsole - don't panic. That may be because they glue the outsole onto the midsole after the midsole has been Goodyear welted - the best case in point is wedge sole outsoles - and sometimes, on really expensive leather-soled shoes, they cut a flap all the way around the outsole, stitch through, and then fold the flap back, and glue it down in order to hide the stitch and protect it.

 

On the other hand, sometimes you can see the welt, but it's a false stitch, either stitched or even moulded on just to look aesthetically pleasing but with no functional effect. Some cheap cemented sole shoes may do this.

 

The big palaver about Goodyear Welted shoes though is that they are eminently re-soleable. Once your outsole wears out, a good cobbler with a Goodyear Welting machine can just cut through the outside stitch, pull off the outsole, which is also glued for more added durability, stick another one on, and stitch through the existing holes in the welt. In this way the stitching through the uppers themselves on the inside of the welt, and the welt itself, are almost untouched, thus preserving the other stated advantage - water resistance.

 

Because there is effectively a welt barrier between the uppers, insole and the outsole, water finds it harder to trickle in.

 

A Goodyear Welt construction, with all the extra material, can make a boot heavy. But these, despite the 2.7 mm thickness of leather and lining combined, are only about 670 grams each - not the lightest, but certainly not the heaviest.

 

Keep going upwards and you can see the uppers are made up of two different types of leather - the smooth leather around quarters and the wingtip panel, and the pebbled leather around the vamp, heel, and the decorative strip around the eyelets.

 

I don't know where the leather comes from but my bet would be from Le Farc Tannery in Mexico where Thursday get many of their leathers. I think it’s top grain bovine leather, slightly corrected and smoothed.  It's firm and feels strong in hand, but it's not exceptional leather.

 

The smooth leather panels have a mottled effect - technically it's called "chiaroscuro" - an arty farty term meaning light and dark or....you know....mottled.

 

This is hand-painted!

 

And considering there are 8 panels of leather, with all that stitching, there's a fair bit of work here, and a fair bit that could go wrong.

 

There are 7 eyelets - no speed hooks - on the 7-inch shaft, slightly higher than normal 6-inch boots, adding to the elegant shape of the design.

 

Inside, it's fully lined with glove leather. No idea what glove leather is other than, I guess, it has to be soft and supple, but it is smooth to slide your feet into and results in that very satisfying "plop" when you push your foot in!

 

The tongue is ungusseted - a bugbear of mine.

 

On my Thursday Captains, the ungusseted tongue on the right boot slipped to one side until I took somewhat drastic action - I used a chisel to punch two slits in each tongue to lace my laces through and keep them in place.

 

On these boots, however, maybe because of the thickness of the leathers on the lined tongue, or maybe because of where they sit in the taller shaft, they don't move as much, or at all.

 

The brogue perforations, the medallion on the toe, the pinking at the edges of these panels, the stitching - the details - they're all pretty good. Don't underestimate how hard it is to punch and cut and sew by hand. Sure, they use hole punching and cutting and sewing machines - but these are still handmade boots in the sense that there is a human hand guiding where the machines cut and punch, not an automated assembly line.

 

 

The look and feel of the leather and the hand burnishing means, I think, a little more care in the conditioning and polishing department, so let's talk about that.

 

The leather is not particularly soft, but it is smooth, nicely waxed, and feels supple. There are no hard spots so no boot oil is required, just cream I think. I've been using Venetian Shoe Cream - my go-to for almost all smooth leather really. I'd totally only use neutral in this case. The hand burnishing and the chiaroscuro - mottling - might get covered up if you use a brown cream or wax polish.

 

 

For the same reasons I'd be very careful what you use to clean it with - I've just made sure I brush after every wear, and if it is dusty- not very likely in my use case scenario of office wear - just a wipe with a damp cloth.

 

I have applied some brown wax polish to the toes and heel and mirror-shined those areas, which it takes very well. 

 

To summarise, it's not a soft scratchable leather like Chromexcel so I don't think you need to be too precious about it - treat it like a tougher dress shoe leather. Give it a good brushing often, wipe it down now and then, and VSC to condition maybe a couple of times a year.

 

 

As you can see from all my discussions previously about the leather and style, and the aesthetic, I believe this is a dressy boot.

 

The Thursday website show models wearing these with rolled-up jeans as well as with pinstripe suit trousers.

 

Yeah, I think you can dress them down because they are, historically at least, a country boot design and by definition, more casual and relaxed. Shooting-party more than dinner-party.

 

 

Think tweed and corduroy, and of course, today's equivalent of relaxed is denim and jeans, five pocket pants in brown or grey or black, or just denim jeans. You could also take the traditional style guide and wear them with neutral corduroys or tweed trousers and sport coats, in relaxed casual, smart casual or business casual modes.

 

Yeah, I think you can also go very business formal, no problem - this dark oak can pair with navy or charcoal suits perfectly.

 

 

I think this is a very versatile boot and leather makeup.

 

Sizing And Fit 

 

Turning to size now, I measure US 8 and a half D (average width) on a US Brannock machine. That's equal to a UK or Aussie 7.5  length in a "G" width. However, most of my American boots are in US 8D. Most boot makers will say they run large and to go half a size down from True.

 

In the case of Thursdays, I got a Captain in 8D and found that after break-in it was the perfect fit. However I later got a Vanguard in one of their rugged and resilient leathers in 8D, and it's still a bit narrow across the ball of the foot for me.

 

So I contacted Thursday customer service - one of the most responsive around by the way - told them my fit in Captains and Vanguards, and they suggested I go true to size at 8.5.

 

So, these are 8.5. 

 

They are slightly long, perhaps by half a thumb's width, but feel good around the ball of my feet. It is a sleeker, slimmer last than the Captain. As a result, they sometimes look long and have more of the European style feel about them.

 

Therein lies one of Thursday Boot Company's shortcomings. Not all their boots have different widths and depending on the model, you have to play with length-size to get width-fit.

 

In 8.5 these are a teensy bit long but not so long that they feel big or floppy or that would make me trip over the toe. I think that at the end of the day I could have probably got away with an 8 but if I did and if it were a bit narrow, I'm not sure it would have stretched as much as my Thursday Chrome Captains - this leather feels less stretchy.

 

As for break-in - there was no issue at all. Apart from the thick, or thick feeling sole that needed to flex a bit at my foot's flex point before it felt totally comfortable, I had no hot spots or rubbed bits. I think one of the keys to breaking in boots is that people may get boots that are the wrong size or width. I think if you get size and width right, that's half the battle won.

 

As for the shock absorption and comfort underfoot, that's where the Poron came in. They were exceptionally springy underfoot straight out of the box. Even today, the sole feels thick and protective, but very shock absorbing, like a sneaker. The arch support with that shank is ok - not phenomenal but it is supportive. Overall, I cannot fault it for comfort underfoot.

 

Maybe in time with heavy use, the Poron might break down as opposed to more leather and cork mid-soles, but that's a long way away for my use, and let's face it, I might never get there, so "right-now" comfort is pretty important to me.

 

 

The Thursday Wingtip is listed at USD $235. That compares well with Beckett Simonon, Oliver Cabell, and Taft, in their dressy, dress-down models.

 

It's more expensive than Thursday's own Captain model and less expensive than any Grant Stone or Parkhurst boots. They are cheaper than Red Wing Beckmans which are arguably a similar dress-up/dress-down style. 

 

In fact to compare with really similar styles you'd need to look at Allen Edmonds or European makes like Trickers and so on - all of them well over the USD $235 mark.

 

So, you get what you pay for, but do you get the quality of that price range?

 

I don't see why not. These Factory Seconds pass as firsts as far as I can see. It's a difficult boot to make, and I think they make it well.

 

Is it worth it?

 

Yeah, I think so.

 

You know, I got these boots because I saw them on the Seconds page and thought they looked good. I wanted a formal business-wearing boot that would go with a suit. I used to wear a Florsheim full wingtip brogue shoe that I wore with a suit in the 90's when we all wore the full suit and tie to go to the office, and I wanted to boot to replicate that.

 

I think I got what I wanted.

 

With COVID shutdowns and work from home mandates every now and then in the last couple of years, I haven't worn these at anything like the "normal" frequency for going to work, but every time I've put on a suit, I put either these on or my black R M Williams Chelsea boots. I feel that with these two boots in my repertoire, that's my suit game sorted.