I agree. Mine are holding up well.

No, we shouldn't do this... the enemy is reading... you're telling them you've paid more than you used to pay for the made in England ones... and that you're happy about them...

This is the internet, think about it!

Let's shut that thread or better delete it!

Just shitting, I'm wearing them right now, but I'm not proud about it!

It's got to be better than the one that was in Weston-super-Mare.

I bought a pair of Clarks when they first started outsourcing - I guess about 12 years ago? Maybe longer. They were truly astoundingly awful - rigid, poor shape, uncomfortable, cheap crepe sole. Oh how I lamented the passing of the Clarks Desert Boots. But I love them, along with the Weejun, they're all I really wear. So I thought I'd try again and lo and behold the pair I bought a year ago were just bang on right. Back to the old quality levels - flexible, bouncy sole, good suede, perfect toe shape. My opposition to outsourcing is 80% aesthetic, 20% political. If Bass or Ralph or Clarks or any number of companies can get their goods made up to scratch in the cheap labour markets then my opposition recedes a little, like my hair. Invariably I don't think they can. OK Clarks have definitely pulled this one off, God bless em (though made in Street, Somerset meant something didn't it? - I find it depressing beyond words that the old factory where they made them is now a fucking 'shopping village', akin to the beautiful Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin now being a luxury hotel/shopping thing). And Uniqlo get cotton basics made to a decent spec in China. But high quality handmade leather goods? No it's got to be US, UK, France or Italy. Can you imagine a made in Vietnam Paraboot? (I think the Paraboot was an omission from The Ivy Look by the way - should have got one of their great old ads in. Too late now...)

TM

The big Clarks in Kingston only had Vietnamese desert boots on display for one or two months at the height of Summer. Smaller Clarks just do not seem to sell them at all.

I still have issues with their weird sizing, even though I managed to get a hand on a UK 13 (!). The still feel uncomfortable in the toe area to me, and I have a pretty narrow foot...strange.

I love the fact that in Italy you see them EVERYWHERE. When the Clarks disappear from their shop windows and Starbucks move in (as is rumoured) well that's when I switch my obsessive love to alternative sources. Under consideration : Brazil (music, climate, women, coffee, Niemeyer), Finland (Aalto, welfare state, Billion Dollar Brain), Asmara(Eritrea) (old Italy, art deco, Borsalino hats, old Africans talking Italian), Japan (Wabi-Sabi, Button-Down Club, Free & Easy, Van Jacket and that tree pruning thing they do...). Do I seem superficial to you?

TM

LOL!  I tend to dislike politicians full stop, for all sorts of reasons.  Miliband is a Blair and Bush blessed lad it seems.  I came across their father as a sociology student back in the day and I know Benn is a friend of the family.  Ed worries me, but not as much as his namesake, Mr. Balls.  I don't mind socialists - I happen to be married to one - so long as they're more like Jeremy Corbyn.  But, as a former Labour activist, Toffeeman, I can assure you that these people are often up to no good.  I've rubbed shoulders with Benn, Kinnock, Hoon, John Smith, Beckett (too close for comfort), Skinner etc. etc.  Robert Laxton, the former MP for Derby North, is a grand chap; and so are many of the rank and file.  I think you'll find Cameron is a tougher cookie than he appears.  I like Jon Cruddas myself, but he was never really in the running.  Isn't Diane Abbott your MP?

Er......do all these people wear desert boots then?  I'm trying to imagine Diane Abbot in some, but the image just isn't coming through.