 Here's an interesting proposition. Is a service boot by definition American? If you look at this boot, you can see quite clearly that it is in a service boot pattern. But this boot is made in Italy with a soft crepe sole. So is it in fact a service boot? G'day, how you going? Welcome to my channel Boot Lossophy and if you haven't been here before my name is Tech. In accordance with the millennia old cultural protocols of Australian First Nations peoples, let me first acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands and waters that I live and work on, the Wajik people of the Nungar Language Group. Today I'm taking a look at this pair of what I might call service boots made by Italian company Astor Flex and called their dowel flex boot. Now Astor Flex call all of their models a name that ends with flex. So for example I have already reviewed their Chelsea boot called the Bitflex which you can see by clicking on the link up there. Now full disclosure, this pair of boots was provided to me by Huckberry for review but the video is not sponsored and I'm not really obliged to say anything other than that how I truly feel about these boots, good or bad. You should know though that I'm quite a fan of the brand Astor Flex as I found them very comfortable and casually stylish in the past. Let's see how these shape up to the others that I had from earlier. If you like the look and you like the review of them you might want to take a look at them on the website and I'll leave a link in the description box below. This dowel flex boot definitely uses a service boot pattern which is commonly associated with American heritage style boots. The dowel flex is quite different to the other six inch boot called the boot flex. I've also previously reviewed that boot and you can watch that review up there in the corner. I can now see that the boot flex is in fact a Southern European work boots style used by farmers and shepherds in Southern Europe mainly Portugal, Spain and Italy and Central Europe. This dowel flex boot on the other hand is modelled after what I've been used to calling a service boot pattern. Here's the interesting thing, are service boots actually American? European makers don't call similar boots service boots and if they call them anything other than a Derby boot for the opening they probably call them ankle boots. And if as an American you really want to blow your mind jump outside your own borders and google images for the tricker's logger boot to see what the Brits think a logger boot looks like. This dowel flex boot has a five inch shaft similar to a US Marine boondocker style from World War II and it's constructed with just three basic panels being the vamp piece and the two quarter pieces. The lined and ungusseted tongue is sewn to the vamp piece and there is a single piece backstay up the middle. It has an interesting inner heel counter stitched into place with a piece of suede on the inside of the boot. The toe box is a round plain toe box and the whole set of uppers is set on top of a natural crepe rubber sole using the stitch down method of construction which I'll get into when I talk about construction methods. Now aesthetically it's a very simple looking boot and because of the simplicity it's very attractive as an everyday casual boot. In this dark chestnut new buck leather that's slightly lightly oiled the mid brown color moves around as you walk and flex the uppers. As such I think it's a casual boot for casual relaxed or social occasions. I think the most appropriate outfits to go with this boot would be casual and relaxed chino pants or jeans with a t-shirt a polo shirt or relaxed button-up shirt. For example a pair of light washed jeans and then oxford cloth button-down shirt with or without a jacket would give you the appropriate relaxed vibes or you could pair the boots with a pair of khaki chinos and a blue button-down shirt with a dark blue blazer and that would be suitable for a casual friday in a professional office. You can also of course wear the boots with a pair of dark or mid-washed jeans and a simple t-shirt to go to a summer's barbecue or an afternoon at the pub. This is such a traditional looking boot and so casual with it that I'm pretty sure it would go with almost any outfit as long as you get your colors right. Stick to basic neutral colors like brown, blue, black, gray, white and olive green. Before we go on let me just give you a brief description and history of the brand. Estor Flex is an italian company founded by the Travanzoli family in the 1890s in a small town that had a lot of family-run boot and shoemaking workshops. The company grew through the years especially after the First World War into an industrialized factory setup and they continued making traditional stitched-down shoes from the same town. Today the family ownership is into its sixth generation and the current owners have embraced an eco-conscious mission to the boot-making ensuring that they use vegetarian leathers to avoid the chrome salt spillage as well as natural rubber for their soles, water-based dyes and non-solvent glues. They've had a partnership with Huckbury for about 10 years now and also make loafers, Chelsea boots and chuckas all called something flex. When I've reviewed Estor Flex boots before like the brown flex chucker up there people have commented that as an italian maker it's not very refined. It's interesting people from different countries seem to travel a lot more than people from others and often it's people who have not traveled perhaps that expect italian footwear to be all sophisticated Gucci products when they see which they see on their TV screens. In fact Italy has a centuries old tradition of making footwear for workers and peasants that have continued to develop into very functional economical shoes and boots for relaxed kick-around casual wear and light work wear. Now let me talk about the construction. As usual I'll start from the bottom and I'll work my way up. At the bottom is this very soft crepe rubber sole. It's slightly over one centimetre thick and the very low block heel is also made of crepe rubber and glued onto the outsole. This type of crepe sole is made of natural rubber. When I was a child I spent some time in Malaysia living near a rubber plantation and I used to watch the liquid rubber being poured into curing trays mixed with acids and then rolled through rollers called crepiers producing sheets of this crepe rubber for storage and transport. This type of outsole is probably most famously used in Clark's desert boots. It is extremely soft and shock absorbing however can wear quite quickly and definitely picks up all sorts of dirt and gravel and sand and anything else you care to mention. Within a couple of weeks walking around outdoors this will look like a big black miss. If you don't mind that it's a very practical outsole for a casual boot because of its grip and comfort but being a bit unsightly probably not great for a dressy occasion. Above the crepe rubber outsole is what looks like a leather midsole. Now it could actually be made of leather board. It's a little less than a half a centimetre thick and feels quite firm without the grainy bits that you often see on the edges of the leather board. There is no shank that I'm aware of and as a result it's actually very flexible and in fact not very stable if you flex it from side to side. The heel is actually very low it's only about 25 millimeters tall and the height difference between your heel and the ball of your foot is only a drop of about 10 millimeters. As a result the weight of your feet don't exert a great deal of pressure into that gap between the heel and the ball of the foot. The inside of the boot is also very flat and so for someone like me with slightly collapsed arches while it's a very comfortable boot to lounge around in it would probably begin to feel painful under the arches if I stood around for too long in it. I have had to insert a heel lift in order to make sure that I have enough of a height difference between my heel and my forefoot in order to feel comfortable. I think I can categorically say that while this is a comfortable casual lounge about boot it is not a boot for standing around in all day and definitely not a work boot or even a boot to go for a long walk in. Moving on up while staying inside the boot there is no cork filling because there's no cavity caused by a welt. This is a stitch down boot and so does not use a welt around the outside of the boot. There is however a thin leather comfort insole made from soft calfskin that's lightly padded with memory foam for comfort and it's not removable. As I said this boot uses the stitch down method of construction in order to fix the uppers to the sole. In this method of construction the uppers are lasted around the last and then flared up and the flared out edge is sewn directly onto the midsole. It is a 360 degree stitch down construction meaning that the stitching of the uppers to the midsole goes all the way around the boot. The crepe rubber outsole is then glued to the midsole. The stitch down stitching is nothing to write home about. While structurally sound it's not particularly good looking. However you have to remember the price which I'll get into as well as the rough casual users that I think you might put this boot into. Otherwise the stitching on the uppers is okay. The quarters are attached to the vamp with a double row stitch while mostly everything else is single row stitched. The toe box is totally unstructured and it's very soft and pliable which is one of the comfort factors when you put the boot on. The heel counter is also soft I'd say and presumably is either a thermoplastic like salastic or a thin leather board or even cardboard. I suspect it's cardboard. It uses an internal heel counter and on the inside I'm not sure you can see it's covered by a piece of suede to give your heel some grip against slippage. The edges of the collar and running down the lace facings it's covered by a rolled edge of leather. This is unexpected for a boot at this price point quite sophisticated. I think I've already said that the tongue is ungusseted however it is the only piece of the uppers that is lined and as this lining thickens the tongue I find it doesn't slip over which many of the tongues in my other ungusseted tongue boots will tend to do. At the rest of the boot vamp and shaft are unlined. I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad thing because it it does not feel uncomfortable and does seem to breathe better in our hot summers. There are eight antique brass eyelets and they are backed with inset washes so they should not mark the leather in the tongue. The laces provided are a pair of flat woven cotton laces and I think suit the look of the boot. The uppers leather is newbuck. Newbuck leather is a corrected full-grain leather. The most famous type of newbuck leather is the yellow newbuck leather used by Timberland Boots. In this case it's about 2.2 millimeters thick which is about average for thicker newbucks. When I said that newbuck leather is corrected I mean that they lightly sand or buff the grain side of the leather ever so slightly so as to create that slightly velvety nappy feel to the surface. This creates a surface that is more resistant to scratching than smooth grain leathers. In this case it's a bovine newbuck that's rotated in a drum in water and then naturally dried and from the feel of it I believe also lightly oiled. This will help to create a certain water resistance and what it also does is create a subtle patterning and show a difference in coloration as the oils move around inside the leather. In many ways this is I suppose the ultimate pull-up leather. I find this quite an attractive leather because of the way the oils move around. Within a few weeks it was starting to show wear and patina. However what I don't like about it is the way the creases form very quickly on the vamp and in one area on the right boot here at the very top there are some creases that are beginning to look like loose grain. Look once again though I have to remind myself of this as a casual kick around boot. Caring for newbuck is simple I think regular brushing is a must. With this texture I find that it picks up a lot of dust and you always know that because when you rub or stroke the boots with bare hands your hands come up feeling a little powdery. The second tip is to apply some type of waterproofing spray before your first wear. Anything you can use to waterproof suede should be okay for newbuck and the one that I use is Tarago's Nano Spray Protector because it's a reasonable mid-price. It will soak the leather as soon as you spray it on and darken it but don't panic because it will dry back to the original color. If the newbuck gets marked you can use a suede eraser to rub off the marks literally and then if it spots give the whole boot a light rub over with the eraser. Immediately after this and also from time to time I think give the boots a brush with a stiff brushed suede brush to clean up the light nap not the copper type but the plastic type. I never saddle soap my newbuck leathers I think the waxes in the saddle soap can penetrate the corrected surface and make the nap stand down and look a little too shiny. Otherwise it's a tough leather again look at an old pair of Timberland yellow boots that they can take punishment. As for sizing fit and comfort I've already spoken about the comfort. At first step it's pretty comfortable and the shock absorption is definitely good but to be honest after a long day your feet might ache because of the flat nature of the sole and the lack of arch support. It's kind of like slippers your feet feel good in them but you probably wouldn't walk around outside all day in slippers. The unlined uppers though allows your feet to breathe and they are soft and supple despite being over two millimeters thick so your feet I think will like them. In terms of sizing the Huckbury website equates a US 8 with an European 41. Now this is tricky. First off my size measured on a US brand new device is eight and a half and I usually wear US Heritage boots a half size down in US 8s. My European sizing can be all over the place but I measure between an European 41 and 41.5. However if you place your trust on the Huckbury conversion then I'd say to you to order in the size that you usually wear in US Heritage boots so for me what Huckbury calls an eight is the right size. It's reasonably snug in the heel waist and the ball of the foot without actually pinching and the rounded toe shape of the last gives me a good feel in the toe box without any toes feeling squashed. Now let's turn to value. On the Huckbury website the link is below they are listed at US $225. This puts them in the lower price range of all service boots and you can compare them to Thursday captains at $200 or their vanguards at $265. The Blake stitched helm holless is $295. The red wing iron ranger not as sleek but certainly sturdily made maybe even better made is $350. So in price terms bang in the range and maybe even at the lower end of the price range for a boot like this. In value terms what you get is an eco-conscious boot if that's important to you some comfort in the wear and shock absorption feeling more like slippers than rugged boots an interesting leather and reasonably well made QC. Look all in all I think it's about bang on the money where the price meets the value in my opinion. Huckbury do have sales often through the year as they move inventory so if you see these on sale I think that would be a good pickup and so to summarize yeah looks like a service boot but not really a service boot. I'll be European and call it an ankle boot. It's fundamentally an attractive casual boot that you can wear anywhere except to the most dressy occasions or the most professional suit and tie offices. I really feel at home wearing it at home kicking around in the house relaxing even lounging in front of the TV with my feet on top of the lounge don't tell my wife. Going for walks around the neighborhood is fine and it's very comfy to do that. Stand around and all day I don't think so I have to get some sort of arch support insert. Price to value is about right and it's easy to care for so there you go. I hope you liked the review and if you did please click on the like button if you're not subscribed click on that button as well. Until the next time guys take care of yourselves and I'll see you soon