After living in New York City for five years, my partner and I recently moved back to where we grew up in Northern California. Of course, life in NorCal is very different from life in NYC — we tend to spend a lot more time outdoors and traversing different climates throughout the day than we … Read more
Irish Setter and Red Wing often get mentioned in the same sentence and there’s good reason: they’re the same company. Red Wing owns Irish Setter, both are boot companies, and fun fact: the Red Wing 875 — widely considered their most iconic boot and the one we’re comparing today — was created in the 1950s … Read more
Over the years I’ve made hundreds of boot reviews and during that time I’ve amassed a pretty sizable collection — and I always come back to moc toe boots as my go-to style for casual situations. While that moc stitching isn’t impossible to dress up (I’ve got the best dressy moc toe a little later on this … Read more
Red Wing is a formidable institution in the world of rugged American boots, so let’s look at what many would consider the complete opposite of rugged: pink men’s boots. On a recent trip to Red Wing’s Minnesota headquarters I noticed their wall of women’s boots, many of which come in leathers that aren’t available on the … Read more
What happens when four self-proclaimed Red Wing experts drink four whiskeys and try to rank the five best Red Wing boots for sale in North America? Fighting. Lots and lots of fighting about men’s boots. By the end of debate, we mostly agreed that these are the best Red Wings available. It wasn’t easy, but … Read more
More and more American brands are outsourcing their production overseas, and look, that doesn’t necessarily mean their products are becoming lower quality. Good and bad products are made in every country, and the producers’ nationality has a lot less to do with it than their business practices. But that doesn’t mean there’s no reason to … Read more
It is surprising how many boot companies don’t offer wide options for their boots. It makes more sense when you realize that these businesses need to make new lasts — foot-shaped blocks of wood used to create the fit — when they want to offer wider sizes. Creating new lasts is incredibly laborious and expensive, … Read more
You can get good boots for under three hundred bucks. It’s a real sweet spot, price wise, and I know because I’ve reviewed dozens of boots and gone through the trouble of making a list of the best boots for under two hundred bucks. I can tell you, it was way easier coming up with … Read more
Reader, you’re in for a treat. This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the world of boots: which is better, Red Wing or Danner? They’re the two most beloved and longstanding icons in the world of American heritage footwear, and it was only a matter of time until these two monsters crossed … Read more
Unless you are exceedingly wealthy or ridiculously lucky, a person living in Manhattan — indeed in most of New York City — must confront the reality that there is never enough space. I ran out of places to put more books sometime in the late 1990s, and ran out of space to store clothes and … Read more