-We've seen a lot of these deck boots in the past few years, and given my love of boat shoes, they've appealed to me a great deal. The first pair I saw were from Rogues Gallery, though I think the original deck boot was made by Quoddy (below.) The above pair, from Ronnie Fieg for Sebago, have been floating around the blogosphere in the past week, and even though I'm completely out of money, they're tempting my wallet. As a diehard Sperry aficionado, I really shouldn't be pumping Sebago, but $140 for a limited edition (120 made of both brown and black models,) hand-sewn boot is hard to pass up. The Quoddy version is undoubtedly better made than the Sebago, but it's also $300, and I actually like the look of the leather on the Sebago better. Any of these boots though, even this slightly more expensive but equally dope blue Sebago x Vane pair below, will look great after they've been worn in a bit. The blue boots are icy, but as I'd probably only ever buy one pair of the same style of boot, I'd stick with something a little more workable.
-Depending on how long the supply of the brown model lasts, I may be getting my hands on a pair of these pretty soon. But my one major trepidation is my aforementioned focus on the relationship between leg opening and shoe-width. I'm wondering how a boot that would be so narrow when laced-up would play against the leg opening1. I keep my denim pretty slim, and I probably wouldn't rock these with anything besides jeans, but still think they might be a little to slim for a boot. My general rule when wearing boots is to roll my pants a bit and just let them fall how they may. Laced-up, these wouldn't really have any girth for the pant leg to snag on, and might look a bit contrived. The obvious solution would be to rock the boots a bit looser, a practice I support when one is cognizant of the fine line between rugged nonchalance and streetwear contrivance, but ultimately it would depend on how well the shoe fit below the laces. If they could be worn looser without flopping around, then there's really no issue, but I've obviously thought entirely too much about this. Anybody have experience with deck boots?
1- To recap, I'm all about break. Therefore, if you've got a narrow show, so narrow that your leg opening just hangs without break, you can look clowny. There are places where conflicting proportion can work effectively. I don't think the ankle is one of those places.
-Update: Blackbird recently posted this image of the Quoddy Deck Boot (below) and it shows the details a bit better than the images from the official Quoddy site. The Seattle shop is selling the boots for a $280. I'm not really a fan of black boots, but I didn't previously notice that the tongue on these is deerskin, which I think adds a nice contrast in look/texture to the Chromexcel outer. If you're considering buying Quoddy deck-anythings, be sure to check Jeremy's analysis, which exposes a bit of trouble with the insoles.
