Tag: desert boots

Clarks & Laura Ashley Desert Boots

Every now and then I have a little look at Clarks Originals, to see what this year’s desert boots are like. (I last wrote about them in 2009.) I may have fallen a little bit in love with this super-girly pink floral Laura Ashley pair. Could they be any more cute?

There’s also a men’s desert boot collaboration with Pretty Green, Liam Gallagher’s clothing line. They have a rounder toe and lower profile heel, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible in a desert boot, but apparently it is!

I’d been hoping to learn to make desert boots, but unfortunately for me the London College of Fashion have discontinued their course. I am saving for a place on their Footwear Summer School, a five-week intensive shoemaking course, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to afford it this year. I’ll have to wait and see.

While I was looking around the internet for articles on how to make your own boots (as you do), I came across this interesting piece from Gentleman’s Corner on the history of the desert boot.

Desert Boots.

Desert Boots

The boots in the picture are all from the Clarks Originals collection. I don’t think I ever owned a pair of desert boots. Wallabees were popular when I was a teenager, and I didn’t like those at all, so I think I went straight from school shoes to Dr Martens. I think my Dad might have worn a sandy-coloured pair though, in the ’70s.

I feel as though I should love the Liberty print pair (top right) on principle (Liberty print shoes!), but they’re not quite my cup of tea. The gold filigree suede ones (top left), on the other hand… I have a bit of a thing for filigree suede at the moment. I also like what happens when you make a desert boot taller.

London College of Fashion have a course on how to make desert boots, which I have of course been coveting for some years. Sadly I don’t have £535, or the extra £200 it would cost to travel into London on ten consecutive Monday evenings. One day, perhaps I’ll have both the funds and the time when their Summer School comes around.

But I’m thinking that if I do decide to order a pair of polystyrene lasts, these are the kind of boots that I’ll attempt to make. In lovely fabrics, of course.