 I'm gonna bring you an unboxing today. Those of you who know your boots, will know that label, Fortis Boots, and those of you who know your Indonesian boots made in Bandung, you're gonna know that boot. So let's open this box, top is already off, and we'll see what's in it. G'day, how you going? Welcome back to Bootlossophy, my channel about boots and boot reviews, and if you haven't been here before, my name is Tech. And just to remind you that if you like what you see in this video, would you please click on the like button that would really help me out. And if you think of subscribing, please do because I'll have many more boot reviews to bring you. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I live and work on here in Perth in Western Australia, the Wajib people of the Nungar Language Group. Inside the box, there are the usual goodies from Fortis, they're a sticker, nice big one. And a spare pair of, in this case, round wax cotton laces. So that's always useful to have. They pack them in a cellophane paper just to protect it, but they're actually protected anyway with these boot bags. And the boot bags have Fortis boots printed on them. Really nice. It's in a sort of, I don't know what material this is, like lining material for your suit or your jackets, silky sort of stuff. So let's take this out. There you go. So this is the Gold Rush boot, made by Fortis Boots in Indonesia in Bandung and designed by John the Happiness Carpenter who's on Instagram as the Happiness Carpenter as well as on YouTube. It's a very tall boot. What would you say? I think that's more than eight inches. Probably somewhere closer to 10 inches. It's a lace to toe. Perhaps it doesn't come all the way down, but it's definitely a lace to toe. My very first lace to toe, in fact, it's not my usual style of boot. The uppers are in Indonesian locally tanned natural leather. I'm not sure if you can see in this light, but it comes out very pale and even a little pinkish, like really natural flesh rather than the sort of Halloween Chrome Excel, natural Chrome Excel, which is a sort of light honey brown and that gets even darker. The inside of it, the rough side, the rough outside, I guess it's a little more sand colored. It's interesting. The inside of the boot is lined because it feels soft, but you can see the rough outside on the tongue and it's much more tanned, even though there is some slight sort of pink natural colors in there. So it's a lace to toe design, high. It has a, would you call that a logger heel or a dogger heel with that curve? I'm not entirely sure. I really must go and watch the real boot top the Dale had recently. That described the heels. I'm hesitating because I'm feeling this and it's so nicely waxed. I mean, let's just take a closer look. You see how really beautifully sanded and waxed that is? It's almost like glass. Dr. Soil heel top lift and Dr. Soil half sole. I think this is their cork, cork infused super grip. And you can see how thick that is, as well as the thickness of the midsole. It looks to me like it might be a double midsole if you take a look at that. It is, I believe, a double row. I don't think it's a stitch down. It's a double row, potentially good year well, 270 degrees I think, because I can't see the uppest leather on the top here. But if you look at the stitching, that's absolutely beautiful, isn't it? Two different types of stitches, two different colors. And you can see how here one of them sort of disappears and it goes round the back. I think this is a good year well. I do like the leather. There's, it's sort of not shiny, but not matte either. It's sort of a smooth kind of not very shiny leather. I can't describe it any better. Hardware is shiny brass. I showed you the round shoelaces. They've got flat wax shoelaces there. I think this calls for one of Dale's kilties, which I'll put on. The stitching is up to Fortis's usual handmade standard. It is so clean and precise. I mean, you wouldn't believe it, but that is one, two, three rows of stitching in that little thin space. Three rows of stitching, quite incredible. Look at the cleanliness of that stitch there. Very small stitch per inch, very, very clean. The backstay, two piece backstay, that keeps the heel counter in place and that sort of seals the stitch of the two upper sides. And this has become Fortis's signature loop stitch, which you look forward to under all your boots. Pull tab, nice, generous size. And because it's tall, I don't normally like that, but because it's tall, I don't think it'll catch on your pants. The last shape is quite rounded. I think that might be quite comfortable, actually. You can see the arch. The top of the collar is rounded. It's been stitched with that flap coming over and inserted in there. Oh, the finishing is just incredible. Let's have a look at the other boot. There you go. It's very firm. I mean, I'll measure the thickness and it is lined, so it's a bit tricky to figure out how thick it is, but it's a very firm and it feels quite a thick leather. Breaking in, I think, might be a little tricky, but we'll see. And again, I see this as being very clean, very precise. The stitching is absolutely beautiful. It'd be interesting how this leather ages and wears. So what I'll do, I mean, I can't see anything wrong with it anyway, so what I'm gonna do is I'll, as usual, put them on feet and try them out and then we'll summarize. For those of you who don't know Fortes, obviously I've mentioned throughout the video that it's an Indonesian bootmaker based out of Bandung just outside of Jakarta. It's become the center for heritage-style bootmaking in Indonesia and they produce some fantastic heritage boots. Fortes started in 2020, short memories, we probably forget that that was the start of COVID big time. And they did suffer for it in the beginning because of lack of orders and so on, but they pushed through. I found Sani through Instagram when he was a really small company, I asked him whether he'd be willing to do a collab with me after I bought one of his boots that I really liked, the service boot in his Dakar last. So we did a collaboration called the Strider Boot and I might put that up there for you to have a look at. So I designed the Strider as an upland walking boot because I do quite a lot of hiking in the bush here in Perth and WA and so I wanted a boot that was nice and soft on the feet and quite grippy on sort of sandy kind of limestone soil. Sani's gone on from strengths to strengths since then. He's been actually quite widely recognized as one of the premium bootmakers in Bandung at the moment and really in the last three years has absolutely blown up his brand. What I really like about Fortes is the precision and the attention to detail. And Sani is, look, it's not easy because Bandung bootmakers don't have websites and they don't really answer their emails very well. A lot of it is done through social media. So all my communication with Sani is through Instagram. He is very responsive. Look, I think he works 23 hours a day because you can contact him at almost any time and he will reply very quickly. The difficulty is when he does get busy that the replies sort of peter out a little bit and then they come back again and he'll spend the next half an hour talking to you about your options. So if you need to contact Fortes Boots, you will have to go to Instagram, I'm sorry. And in his Instagram account is also his WhatsApp number. So those are the two main ways of getting in touch them. But as you can see, what they produce is truly quite amazing. So the first thing that strikes me is that these are tall boots that went in easily enough. Oh, the leather is the leather is definitely sturdy. Sizing is okay. I think it might be a little bit big length wise for me. Might be about a half, I think, but I am wearing quite thin socks. I would usually wear thicker socks with this type of boot. Yeah, the tongue is really quite thick, it's nice. It has a firm feel and because it goes so high up my leg, feels very supportive. Despite being quite roomy with my thin socks, I'm wearing sort of very average athletic socks in black. Despite being quite roomy because of the thickness of the leather or the leather and lining combination, I am definitely feeling the ankle support and to a large degree, the stiffness in the ankle. It fits well. It feels quite comfortable under foot, although very stiff like I, you know, bending the, what I think is a double leather sole structure. Luckily the half sole helps in that, you know, you're not bending against the arch as well all the time. They look pretty good on my feet. Let me just get rid of this chair. They feel pretty good. They give you a really nice rocking motion as you walk. Yeah, it will take some time to break these in because everything's just so thick, not particularly heavy for all that leather under my feet with the thick leather around my ankle. Not very heavy, which is surprising. It looks like it should be a very heavy boot. I do like the color in this late afternoon light in my study. It's no longer initially what I thought might be was quite pink, but it's not really. It is definitely a sort of natural flesh color, bit like my pork chop, really. Yeah, I like it. The very high shaft is different. I mean, I have eight inch ones. What's this? Let's go. Where's the inches? Okay, there you go. From the top of the heel, oh, I see. It's actually just a little over nine inches. Just a little over eight inches, actually. I thought it was a nine inch boot. I think the high heel may give the wrong impression optically. Super cool. I'll measure it properly, of course. And when I bring you a proper review in a month or so, maybe a bit longer, I'll get it all measured out and weighed and everything. Yeah, I like it. Very nice. I feel like I should go for a walk. So there you go, guys. This is the Fortis Happiness Carpenter Gold Rush Boot in natural, locally tanned Indonesian leather. I think it's actually a veg tan as well, but I'll get that confirmed before I bring up my next review. And obviously, like all Fortis boots, you can get this in different leathers, including Italian high-end leathers from Mariam. You can get these in Chrome Excel and so on. Yeah, super. So plan is as normal. I'll break these in. I'll wear them for a few months and then I'll bring you a full review. And if you don't want to miss that, don't forget to click on Subscribe down there. And if you like, don't forget to click on Like. Where is it over there somewhere? Terrific. So take care out there, guys, and I'll see you soon.