Will My Feet Ever Hurt Again, Doctor??? (Doctor Martens)

Member Name: SpankMarvin

Product:	Doctor Martens
Date:	30/05/02 (1049 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Durable, Comfortable

Disadvantages: Perhaps a little pricey?, The Levellers

Cast your mind back. It's the early nineties and you're at a festival watching The Levellers, with dreadlocks and combat shorts and a vest on. What are you wearing on your feet? Yes, DM boots, with hiking socks.

OR, cast your mind back to a different past. It's the early nineties, and you're watching Pearl Jam. You have long hair but it's not dreaded. You are still wearing combat shorts OR stone-washed blue jeans with rips at the knees, with a T-shirt. But you are still wearing DM boots with hiking socks.

That's not to say that Doc Martens have only been around for that long. In fact, they are fifty odd years old, the product of a man of the same name as the company, who developed a new comfortable shoe - using old tyres - for people whose feet required it. They eventually became a style icon, notably with those crazy punks, and everyone remembers the girl at school who had a pair and attacked them with Tip-Ex to make them look more, ahem, unique.

I remember going in to buy my first pair of DMs, at £49.99 for the standard black up-to-the-bottom-of-the-calf boot. My dad wasn't too impressed - after all, he was paying and at 50 quid I think he had better ideas for what shoes I should buy for school. But I wanted those DMs soooo badly. So I went out with my mum instead in order to get round the dad hurdle, and we (she [he]) bought them and took them home.

That was SIX years ago. I think that now my dad realises the true economy of his unwitting purchase, because these boots are still going strong. Yes, they are scuffed, they are battered. They are creased, worn, slightly torn, and all no thanks to my treatment of them at school, playing football at break, kicking cans down the street, running around and being up to no good - all the things a sixteen year old boy gets up to. But my DMs are still comfortable. They are, without any doubt, the most comfortable shoes which aren't training s
hoes I have ever worn. So much so that I bought another pair which pass quite acceptably for smart shoe wear without subjecting your feet to the kind of pain which feels like dwarves are leaning their axes on your toes.

DMs are available in all sorts of varieties now, too. There are high cut boots, lower cut boots, and boots cut so low that they are no longer boots but shoes. Then there are the shoes which have so much of the upper missing that they are sandals. There are laced shoes and buckled shoes. Everything you could desire, including the wide variety of coloured and sprayed boots which can look stylish, but also quite freakish. All of them are so comfortable though, really they are. If you've never tried a pair of these on, and you don't believe me, try them on for yourself and eat your words. They are snug and well made, and the quality of workmanship is so good that they last an absolute age. They are versatile things, which you can wear casually or smartly, or if you really must, paint or spray them, and they still look pretty good. They're a bit like the shoe equivalent of the Beetle car, really.

I've even got a DMs wallet, which I've also had for six years. It has been dropped, opened, closed, lost, found, lost again, talked about briefly, found again, and has absorbed a ridiculous amount of drink in its lifetime. Squeeze it, and you could open a brewery. But even now, despite being a little scuffed and worn, it's still going strong, the most reliable wallet I've ever had.

So there you have it. It only remains to say that if you're at university and you're a boy who's going to one of those union "Back to School" nights, and you want to go as a school girl but can't find shoes to fit, DMs are the perfect solution. I have never done this.

I am wearing mine now as I write this, for inspiration. I am wearing nothing else but hiking socks.

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