Maybe developing a new product was just the excuse I gave myself to go shopping. Over the past week I made the rounds of Seoul's major select shops, browsing, doing a little shopping, and gathering ideas and inspiration for our next product. But one of the most important questions we ask when we develop anything new is whether Sean and I actually want to wear it ourselves. We really are the biggest fans of what we make — and perhaps I started this work precisely so I'd never have to draw a hard line between shopping and product development, between work and a hobby.
Modeman, in Seoul's Hongdae neighborhood, is one of the best places in the city to find denim, American casual clothing and accessories, boots, and leather jackets. It's somewhere I come back to whenever I get the chance.
The truth is, lately we've been thinking hard about where to take the engineer boot next. The product our customers love most — and the one with the most reviews — is the 3450. It's approachable, beautifully made, and above all the line that falls from the upper down to the toe is genuinely striking. I'll confess I wear my 3450s more than anything else, and couldn't be happier with them. When we decided to launch BYO on the 3450 first, it was for exactly this reason: given how much our customers love the 3450, we wanted to give them more options to enjoy it in more ways.
I bring up the 3450 because the main purpose of this select-shop tour was to develop a new model built on it. So the moment I walked into Modman, I left behind all the denim jackets, belts, and gorgeous leather jackets that catch your eye on the way in and went straight to the boots. Modman carries an almost uncountable range of boot makers — VIBERG, ADDICT CLOTHING, Red Wing, Old Joe, Black Sign, and more — and even keeps stock of Clinch's hard-to-find engineer boots.
Of everything on display, the first thing to catch my eye was the boot from ADDICT CLOTHING. Many people know ADDICT CLOTHING as a storied British leather-jacket house, but the boots they began developing and releasing about a decade ago are exceptionally high quality. Among them, the relatively recent CL last has a sleek shape that's striking at a glance — and clearly the Amekaji scene these days favors a last with this kind of silhouette. Customers love it, and the makers, responding to that demand, are building it in a range of leathers.
Put ADDICT CLOTHING's CL-last boot next to Red Wing's recently revived engineer line, the 2966, and the difference in form is unmistakable. To me, Red Wing's engineer last and toe shape are about as close to the textbook engineer boot as it gets. The engineer I actually reach for most is Red Wing's now-discontinued 2268 — it's heavy, but the last is so well designed (right up through a properly judged instep height) that it stays comfortable no matter how long I wear it.
Personally, I think the engineer styles represented by Wesco's Boss and by Clinch both fall under the single category of “engineer boot,” yet it's no exaggeration to call them entirely different kinds of boot. They share one genre root, but what they aim for and the contexts in which they're worn are very different. American brands like Wesco and Red Wing stay fairly faithful to the roots the engineer boot grew from. Set against the precise detailing and slick, tidy silhouettes of Japanese brands like John Lofgren, Toys McCoy, and Old Joe — which call to mind a British dress shoe — the American makers are sturdy but rougher; that upswept toe shape and toe stiffener still faithfully realize the functional purpose for which laborers once wore them: to protect their feet.
(Wesco boots shoot from another store called Semi Basement)
Spend time in this world of heritage wear and you sometimes get the sense that there's a hierarchy among brands. There's an entry-level brand and a final-boss brand; for horsehide, a certain hide is supposedly the best; for outsoles, a certain outsole is naturally the best. I agree with some of it — but rather than there being a ranking, a pecking order, or a single right answer, I think a great product is born when the direction a given brand and product is reaching for gets realized within the actual context in which it's worn.
John Lofgren's flawlessly clean edge finishing against Wesco's engineer, which leaves the roughly cut cross-section as it is — these are entirely different products, and yet both are beautiful, compelling things. To conclude that John Lofgren is simply a higher grade, or a more devoted house of craftsmanship, just because it sells at a higher price strikes me as a hasty verdict drawn from a single side of the story.
The post has wandered a bit, but I think this tour has more or less set the direction for the next product. The truth is, before the tour I already had a working hypothesis. I saw a great many boots in the process — but rather than landing on something entirely new, it felt more like indirectly confirming the hypothesis I already held.
On a lighter note: in the end, my engineer-boot benchmarking tour left me with one pair of boots, two pairs of jeans, and three T-shirts. I'll think of it as a tab my future self will pick up, and keep working hard to make good on it. My thanks to everyone who cares for and loves our brand.