 G'day, how you're going? If you're new here, my name is Tech. Welcome to my channel, Bootlossophy. And as usual, I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of Wajik country, the lands on which I live and work. In this video, I'm looking at these Fred country boots from Grenson, the English footwear company out of Northampton. Grenson is a British footwear manufacturer with a long history dating back to 1866. The company was founded by William Green in Northamptonshire, England, a region known for its rich history in shoe making. Grenson began as a small family-run business producing high quality handcrafted shoes for men. Grenson shoes are known for their durability, comfort and timeless style and they have been worn by a couple of people you may have heard of like Winston Churchill and the former Prince of Wales, now King Charles. After the Second World War, its fortunes started to wane like many other Northampton brands that had to cope with cheap imports. After a long downward spiral, the CEO Tim Little was asked by the owners to take over the company and subsequently by 2010, he had full ownership and was also its creative director. As many old heritage brands found, they relied on old successes and forgot about design so Little stripped down everything old fashioned and irrelevant in his own words and put in a design culture. He has since led it to become a well-known and respected brand and has been credited with expanding the company's reach and modernizing its designs while still maintaining its classic English quirky aesthetic. The company is still based in Northamptonshire. Today their boots and shoes are split into three categories costing from under 200 pounds to nearly 500 pounds. G0 and G1 footwear are made in their Northampton factory with the difference between G0 and G1 being in the quality of materials and that final finishing. For example, G1 has an open channel Goodyear Welded Soul where you can see the stitches in the outsole and G0 uses closed channel where the stitches are hidden under a split lip in the in the sole. G2 is made in India but Little is at pains to explain that all the design patterns and leather sourcing is made in Northampton and then manufactured in an Indian Goodyear Welding factory. He emphasizes that the Indian factory even involves more handmade processes simply because they don't have machinery. This model called the Fred is a G2 product. As you can see it's a stocky chunky a chunky English country boot. It's very similar to Trickers Stow boot because it belongs to that same family first made by Trickers and then followed by other Northampton boot makers in the mid 1800s. The English country boot was made for tramping in the English country when gentlemen visited their country residences to hunt and shoot. Originally a waterproof boot it started to be combined with Scottish and Irish farming brogue boots so that the modern country boot design incorporates brogue and wingtip patterns. The original purpose of all that broguing being to allow water to leave the boot so that it wouldn't soak your feet in a collecting pool inside. The Fred boots broguing is big and generous including the pattern of the rosette on the toe. The panels are pinked so that the edges of the panels look serrated. It's six inches in height and set on a chunky triple layer sole with a block heel and a storm welt. This one is in tan with hand burnish detailing on the toe and on the heel. Well I think it looks quite sleek and elegant it's also clearly chunky and so looks also quite aggressive as an outdoor boot which makes pairing it with outfits quite interesting. Many in England will wear brogue boots with a suit and this tan leather will go well with grey and blue suits paired with either a conservative white shirt and tie or with striped or pain-checked dress shirts. You can also of course go halfway formal and wear it with odd trousers or chinos with a blazer or sports coat and it will become a business casual boot. Due to its outdoor origins you can also pair it with something way more casual say looser moleskin trousers and a casual button-down Oxford cloth shirt. Definitely you can also pair it with earth tone five pocket pants in tan or green as well as jeans and then you layer outfit with leather jackets or waxed waterproof jackets. Taking a look at the construction it uses the Goodyear welted method of construction where the uppers are attached to the sole using a 360 degree Goodyear storm welt. You can check out my video up there explaining Goodyear welts but basically it's a strip of leather going all the way around the circumference of the boot. On the inside the insole is sewn onto the welt and on the outsole a stitch goes through the welt through the midsole and the outsole. This makes the boot water resistant because no stitching goes all the way through the boot from outside to inside. This also makes the boot re-solable because your cobbler can cut that stitch and remove the outsole to replace it without disturbing anything else. In this case the welt is a storm welt in that there is a flange that gets pushed up against the side of the boot thus making it even more water resistant. The outsole is a triple layer sole. The most outer layer is an oak tan piece of leather then there is a slip sole just under that which is made of rubber for shock absorption and then there is another leather midsole. The fourth layer you see at the edge is actually the welt which is a thick welt. The leather outsole is nearly five millimeters thick. The rubber slip sole is about another five millimeters thick. The leather midsole is around three millimeters thick and the welt which is another three or four millimeters thick combined to give you the impression of a heavy thick sole shoe. In fact each boot only weighs 620 grams or that's about one and a half one and a third pounds even which is pretty light for a Goodyear welt leather sole boot. The heel is stacked real leather with a rubber layer just below the top lift which is leather with a corner cut out for a rubber insert. Some people may not like the leather insole but I find it breathable and flexible and it just feels good under your feet. Yes it can definitely be slippery but less so once you've properly broken in and scratched it up only once it finds grip by getting all scratched up it gets to look pretty dirty. Can't have everything. Moving on up inside the boot that thicker welt going around the edge of the boot obviously creates a cavity inside. This is filled with cork. On top of that is a leather insole and a non removable comfort leather sock liner that goes all the way from the heel to the toe. This cork and leather combination is the gold standard for heritage boots and can be extremely comfortable and breathable. Continuing on upwards this fret boot is in tan full grain calf skin leather. I think it's uncorrected full grain because I can see all kinds of subtle texture on the surface. It is very soft and supple and very comfortable once broken in. There is a slastic stiffener in the toe box not particularly stiff. The heel counter is also a slastic a bit thicker both of which help you to reduce the weight of course. At the back the heel counter cover is decorative because the slastic heel counter is actually inside covered up by the lining. There's also a thin back strip going up the back to cover the seam and at the top there's a cotton cloth webbing pull tab which is useful and also discreet because it tucks away and doesn't get caught up in your trouser hem. As I mentioned the brogue holes are big and the brogue panels are pinked. The toe and heel are hand burnished. There are seven fully backed black eyelets that are generous so you can put through some thick laces like on here which I think suit the look. The tongue is ungusted but it doesn't seem to slip on my foot not yet anyway. Perhaps it's the thickness of the leather which is about 2 millimeters thick all over plus a 1 millimeter thick lambskin lining. The boot is fully lined with that very soft lambskin. Overall quality control is pretty good don't worry about made in India these are put together quite well. There is not a single loose stitch or any wayward stitching throughout the boot. Every piece of leather is well cut well chosen there are no ugly wrinkles as you can see despite the suppleness at the vamp and the ankle. The soles and heels are well put together and they are solid. Grants and sell a range of leather care products and for the calf skin leather they suggest you clean it using their William Green's cleaning tonic to remove dirt and stains and then moisturize it with their factory cream polish. I think you can quite easily use Venetian shoe cream as a conditioner that's my condition of choice for smooth leathers and then if you want a more lustrous polish hit it with a good neutral cream polish. Grants and suggests that you brush and polish every three or four ways. I would be very careful of using oils on this leather because I think oils would darken the creamy yellow tan. I'd also be careful using cleaners with alcohol because of the hand burnishing. The alcohol or any heavily petroleum based content might just wipe off that burnishing. As for sizing they use the UK sizing numbers and they run a half size large so UK sizing numbers are one number down from US sizing numbers. On a brand new device I'm a US 8.5 in D width. That means I'm a UK 7.5 in average width. Usually in most American boots I have to size down by half to an 8D. These boots are in UK 7 average width and they are a perfect fit. Now a word about UK width denomination. Prepare to be baffled. Grants and like RM Williams call their average width a G width. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any widespread agreement about those letters used by different bootmakers. Some UK manufacturers for example design their average width and call it an H width and some even call it a C width if you're not sure check. In terms of comfort these provide really snug but comfortable fit. The last is reasonably wide at the ball of the feet but it is snug at the heel. The rounded toes don't squish your little toes in like some sleep boots although there's not really spare room to wiggle your toes. They just seem anatomically proportioned and fit my feet quite well. Shock absorption is pretty good and so is arch support. I don't wear these very often but when I do these are one of my most comfortable boots that I could wear all day. The Grants and Fred boots list set 440 euros or about 670 or 673 Aussie dollars or about I think that's 480 US dollars they're about. That's not cheap but they do pop up in some Australian online websites at around 400 to 500 dollars. They are a great boot but to be honest I think at over 600 Australian dollars they're a little overpriced. If you can get them for around 500 dollars or less that's not bad. They are good quality and they have a heritage name. At around 500 dollars they compare with American boot brands that you can get in Australia like Parkhurst, Truman and Grant Stone landed in Australia and in my opinion they compare well in that price and quality range. As a quaint British style than versatile boot at that price I'd be happy. Well I hope you like the review. Let me know in the comments below and while you're down there don't forget to click on the like button please that really would help me out and of course if you're not subscribed click on the subscribe button. Do you know nearly 70% of viewers who watch my videos keep coming back but they have not subscribed so come on subscribe and help me grow my channel. There's going to be a lot more boot reviews and brand comparisons as well as some upcoming best-of so subscribe and don't miss out. Look until the next time take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon.