Barry Didcock on cowboy boots
Post by (ugg boots schweiz) Jan 2011
Our weather-beaten wellies are just as accurate.
They say hemlines rise in good times and fall in bad. But is there an equivalent economic litmus test in the world of men’s fashion? According to The Economist – and who am I to gainsay The Economist? – there is: cowboy boots.
“I have a theory that when America pulls out of recession it’s a boom time for boots,” says Jennifer June in the current edition of the august magazine. In her eyes, nothing exudes confidence and swagger like a pair of stack-heeled JR Ewing specials. In other words, when America smells a bull market, it reaches for the ****kickers.
June, by the way, is the author of Cowboy Boots: The Art And Sole, and is billed as America’s “leading expert”, so we can assume she knows what she’s talking about.
Even better, she also makes cowboy boots. There are about 250 such specialists in the US, mainly in the southern states. Their clients can spend years on a waiting list, and a pair of basic handmade boots will cost more than $2000 and require 40 hours of labour. Or labor, as they say in Abilene, Texas, where Bell Custom Boots has its workshops.
So is America pulling out of recession? Is it boom time for cowboy boots? Am I talking bear – or bull? The Economist doesn’t say, although, given the lack of cowboy boots on view in Scotland this week, I’ll venture we are still up to our necks in low-hemline bad times.
Mind you, when have there ever been cowboy boots on view here? Buffalo Bill and his Rough Riders swung through these parts in 1904 but, escaped zoo animals aside, I’d be surprised if the sound of alligator skin on cobblestones has been heard much since.
Perhaps we should look closer to home for our own equivalent of the cowboy boot as economic weather vane. The best I can come up with is the wellie, and here at last there is some good news: while the British Retail Consortium has reported a pretty dismal Christmas all round, sales of wellies are up.
Now you can’t get them custom-made just yet – Jimmy Choo’s metallic Hunter wellies with silver trim are as close as you’ll get, although I’d keep my distance – and I’ve never seen a pair decorated with rhinestones. But if it’s confidence and swagger you want, these are your boys. Stick one on each foot and you’ll navigate the recession – and the puddles – with ease.
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