 G'day, welcome back to Boot Lossophy, and if we haven't met, my name is Tech. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I live and work on, the budget people of this Nunga country. Today, I'm taking a look at the Nyx Robert Boot. This is the casual boot with the genesis of their work boot experience and expertise and incorporating a high dogger heel. So this is the Robert Boot made by Nyx from the US Pacific Northwest tradition. As you can see, although it's marketed as a tough casual boot, this definitely has work boot genes. Nyx Handmade Boots is famous for making boots for loggers and firefighters in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. So you can see that when they make a casual boot, it's still as tough as all their work boots. This is a plain toe boot with a shaft that's about six inches high from the top of the heel. However, it looks taller because it incorporates this two inch dogger heel, which I'll talk about later. I'm not an expert on these higher heel boots, and so I'm not really sure what the differences are between a dogger heel, which I've told this is, a logger heel, and a cowboy heel. Aesthetically, I can see that this dogger heel looks similar to the heel on my Western cowboy boots in that it has a slanted angle at the back. I can also see from the web that what people call a logger heel has a curved back to it. That's about all I know about these heels. Later on, when I talk about the construction though, I'll discuss the need for a higher heel in these boots because of the arch support that's built into them. Let's talk about how you would pair these boots with outfits. Look, I have to admit, these things look like outdoorsy woodsmen in a logger work boots, at least in the American work boot tradition. This is even though Nix themselves described the Robert boot as originally made for serious workers wanting a weekend boot. At the same time in making this boot, they differentiated it from their falcon boot by giving it greater arch support and a higher heel, making it consistent with the other serious work boot models. On top of that, they constructed with this thick wicket and craig veg tan bridal leather. Bridal as in horse tack, not bridal at a wedding. Now that's a thought. Anyway, you surely can't go wrong wearing these boots with basically work gear. For example, they seriously go well with a pair of denim jeans and some sort of work shirt or flannel shirt and a work or leather style jacket. I think they also work with things like canvas pants, canvas shirts and maybe other bomber jacket type things. I have tried them with chinos but I think you have to be careful that in that case, you dress to look just neat rather than dressy casual. These are not dressy at all. While they were designed as weekend boots for manual workers, I don't think they extend to anything towards that dressy end of casual. So before we go on, let's take a look at the history of Knicks Boots. I think in order to understand where Knicks Boots come from for non-Americans, we have to see what a holy grail of a center for quality boot making the American Pacific Northwest Coast means to Americans. That once upon a time heritage boot making was available right across the United States, globalism and the world economy, as well as I think it's fair to say our 21st century throwaway culture, that's meant that the American heritage boot making business has declined. However, the Pacific Northwest states, primarily Oregon and Washington state, still remain a critical center of quality boot makers as represented by whites, Knicks, Franks, Wesco, JKs and if my American viewers don't mind including their Canadian cousins, Weiberg. Within this epicenter of boot history, Knicks Handmade Boots was started in 1964 by Knick Blahutsin, I hope I'm saying that right, in Spokane, Washington. The original Knick has an interesting history being born in the Ukraine of Russian descent. He was still in the Ukraine when Germany invaded the USSR in 1941 and he was conscripted into the Soviet Army during World War II. After the war he immigrated to the US in the 1950s and eventually settled in Washington state. He worked for whites boots for a while until he started his own business in 1964. The original Knick finally retired in 1986 after the business had been bought over by Gary Myers and Leonard Smith. Throughout that period, Knicks was gaining a quality reputation, particularly for forest firefighters from all over the US, Canada and even Mexico. The business has changed hands a few times since then, but it has grown from strength to strength as a quality maker of work boots for loggers, packers and woodland firefighters. They have since increased their product range to include work boots for builders and other trades, or at least in America, as well as their more casual boots such as this Robert Boot. Clearly, some of these names that I've mentioned like loggers and packers are foreign to people not in the US, but you can guess how steeply entwined Knicks boots is to the US logging industry. Now let's turn to how these boots are constructed. Starting at the bottom, the outsole is a rubber Vibram 430-430 outsole with mini commando lugs. This provides a reasonable grip on most surfaces while still looking reasonably flat in profile. The heel, as I said, is built up to 2 inches using stacks on stacks of vegetarian leather topped by a thick Vibram rubber top lift. You'll notice this bow at the arch here. Keep that in mind. I'll talk about what happens there when I go inside the boot and talk about arch support. Moving on up comes a leather midsole which is over 5mm thick. Combined with the rubber outsole, you have over 1cm of sole construction that's under your feet, and that's even before we talk about the insole. The uppers of this boot are connected to the sole layers using a double row stitch down method. This is where the front part of the uppers are flanged out and then stitched down through the midsole and the outsole. The back half of the uppers are turned in and then stitched and nailed to the layers in the insole. If you look inside, the bottoms are made up of layers of leather and then more leather. Forget about foam or poron, there ain't nothing to see here. Now we come to the arch support. Forget about a thin steel shank. The arch support in the Robert Boot is made up of layers of shaped leather creating the contours for this arch as well as forming the shank. The layers of leather are built up at the bottom in such a way as to create this bow here in the arch area of the outsole. And this is where the high dogger heel comes in. The high heel accommodates a high arch support coming from the layers of leather in the arch. If a block heel was used, all that leather that creates a hump under your arch becomes quite annoying. But on the slope caused by the higher heel, they form a shape to comfortably support your arch on the inside. Now moving on up, the upper leather is from Wicket and Craig. It's their vegetable tanned English bridal leather. It's up to three millimetres thick in some places, certainly one of the thickest leather in any of my boots, comparable to the chrome XL and my white MP boots and the collata in my Weiberg service boots. As a tannery, Wicket and Craig have been tanning leather since 1867. They are said to be one of the just two remaining vegetable tanneries in the US. The leathers that they are famous for tanning include oil litigo and this English bridal leather. This is vegetable tanned as I said and used in equestrian gear as well as other high end leather goods. It is drum dyed and hot stuffed with waxes revealing a smooth full grain surface. I found this leather to be extremely supple and flexible and yet tough and certainly it doesn't mark very easily. Okay, I haven't built a house wearing this nor have I done anything particularly spectacular outdoors but you can tell when the leather is resilient. The stitching on the uppers is pretty good for a work boot manufacturer. Don't expect to find stitching like in dress shoes but there's nothing really wrong with this. This is made by work boot makers definitely. The double row stitch down stitching is neater than on my white MP boots and the stitch per inch density is actually quite uniform. Really not bad for being hand stitched. Elsewhere it's triple and quadruple stitch where it counts at the quarters and the heel counter covers. There is a two piece heel stay made up of a well stitched backstrip and the counter cover. The collar of the shaft is rolled and securely stitched but the lace edgings are raw though. The toe box is a lightly structured toe box stiffened with I think leather. It's quite giving. The external heel counter is all leather. The whole boot is unlined, unnecessary to line it really when you consider the thickness of the leather and its suppleness. The tongue is made of a softer thinner dark brown leather. It looks and kind of feels like chrome excel but I don't think it is. The tongue is fully gusted bellows tongue that you have to fall when you lace your boots. A cutie is provided and it's made of the same thick English bridal leather. This boot has eight brass eyelets no speed hooks. I understand though that if you wanted speed hooks they could be put on a custom fit. The construction is really solid. You can feel the layers and layers of leather when you slip your foot in and you can feel the support of the arch as well as the leather heel counter as you lift the boot in your hand it's heavy. This is built on Nix 55 last which is a high arch last. The 55 has a reasonably round toe and good support around the ball of the foot, the waist as well as the heel. The aesthetic is not for everyone I think but it has a certain appeal to me. I guess in terms of aesthetic the only thing that I'm undecided about is this high heel something that I'm just not used to. Now looking at leather care, while Wicket and Craig don't provide any information it is a waxy smooth leather and I think conditioning with any oil or wax based conditioner would be fine. This includes a small jar of grease with the boots which I think is actually open offs. I have conditioned these with that. It hasn't really darkened the leather and it feels really fine. I think also condition it with say Knitz foot oil or mink oil although I'd be careful about the mink oil which I have found as darkened leather. This leather is pretty durable and from my experience decently waterproof so from time to time washing it down with saddle soap or even just plain water I don't think we'll harm it. As usual though the most important care is to keep it clean and dust free by brushing it with a good quality horse hair brush as regularly as you can. Dust and grit is leather's worst enemy. I bought these from eBay in good condition in a size 8D that's a US size 8D. My US brannock size is 8.5 in D width so I size down by a half and it really fits well. Now I know that you can order these for a special fit but I assume the original owner of these bought these as a standard fit. Assuming that's true in this standard fit I'd recommend going down a half size from your brannock. When I got these I could see that they were only lightly worn I mean look at the heel. There was zero wear. Look at the sole and the stitching at the bottom of the outsole is barely touched. The leather at the vamp was only lightly creased so even though these were very lightly used I didn't find that I needed to break these boots in. Maybe the few wears by the original owner had already broken them in but my feeling is that they don't actually require a lot of breaking if you get the right size. So in terms of comfort the fit around my foot heel and ankle is a really good fit and extremely comfortable. As for the arch support when I first put these on in the morning I really feel that lump digging into my slightly fallen arches. However within 20 or 30 minutes whether it's my feet adapting to the boot or whether it's the way the arch support has been moulded in leather they really start to feel good. By the end of the day I'd have forgotten about the lumps under my arches and I do really feel supported and comfortable. I know that the high heel adds to the effect but nevertheless that's the one thing about these boots that I'm not particularly fond of and I do feel like I'm standing in high heels. Now how about value? So as I said I bought these on eBay for Australian $300. Given the very light wear I think that was a steal. On their website the standard Robert model sells for US $569. I believe depending on options they can go up to $600 plus US. So bear in mind you can't compare these to mid-range boots in terms of material and quality of construction so don't even try to attempt to compare them to say Red Wing or anything similar. I think for a true comparison you do have to look at the other Pacific Northwest brands. With the high $500s they're in the same ballpark as boots from Whites and even some Viberg models. Other brands like Franks and JK also have their boots around this range. Viberg's service boots sell for $700 and above but I think they market their service boots as dressier tough boots rather than rough work boots and you can tell that from their finishing. I think as value they compare really well with their competitors taking into account the materials that Nix uses, the amount of leather that's in these boots and the quality control that I can see. Would I buy them new? That's a tough one. I don't really have a need for boots built this well. My Grail boot was the Whites MP boot and I wanted that not for its construction but simply because it is a Grail. I have a pair of Viberg service boots, again not bought to be used as a work boot but because I want that dressy quality. As for this Robert boot, I don't wear it that frequently because I just don't need a boot built this well as a casual, let's face it, work boot as opposed to a smart casual service boot. So the answer is no I would not buy new because I would not use it for what it's intended to be used for. However, having bought it for $300 I'm glad I've got this at that price. Let's get that clear. My hesitation is not about the value to price ratio but the fact that I just wouldn't use it. So let's summarize. These are one pair of tough boots. The leather used is remarkable in my opinion. The weighty construction, the layer on layer of leather, the hand stitch construction all add to a very pleasurable boot to wear. On the other hand, despite Nick's saying that these boots were for weekend wear meaning casual wear and not work wear, they're not something that I would wear on many casual occasions at least not in Australia. Not frankly, they're overbuilt for me and their design aesthetic as a Pacific Northwest forestry boot just doesn't suit my use cases in Australia. Your experience, particularly your American, might be totally different. Having said all of that, I'm not at all sorry that I've got this. They are something to admire. So that's it. I hope you liked the review. You know what to do if you did. Click on the like button below and if you haven't already please click on the subscribe button to help me to grow my channel and to notify you of the other boot reviews, boot cleaning videos and boot brand comparison videos that I have coming up. Until the next time, please take care and I'll see you soon.