 G'day, how are you going? If you haven't been here before, welcome to Bootlossophy, my name is Tech, and I'm filming on budget country in Western Australia, Nungabuja, and I recognise the traditional owners. Today it's time to look over an Australian classic, the RM Williams Comfort Craftsman Chelsea Boot, this one in tobacco suede. This is the RM Williams Comfort Craftsman Chelsea Boot. If you're Australian, owning one of these boots is almost a birthright. I say almost because for many, recent price increases have made this an expensive birthright to claim. The Chelsea Boot, despite the sleek modern look, was a design from the mid 1800s. They were actually first made for Queen Victoria by her private bootmaker as a walking and riding boot. While they have been used as riding and work boots from that time onwards, it wasn't until the 1960s when they became associated with pop music bands like the Beatles. In fact, they were first known in those days as Beatle Boots. But since the swinging 60s sent it in the London suburb of Chelsea, they eventually became popularly known as Chelsea Boots. Apart from the craftsman in its many different guises, RM Williams also make 10 other Chelsea Boots. They differ by shaft height, the shape of the toe, the heel, and shape of the elastic side goring panels. On top of the different designs, they make each of them with different leathers and change up the soles so that at the time of filming this, they have over 60 different makeups of Chelsea Boots. The Comfort Craftsman is six inches high from the top of the heel to the top of the shaft. It has a block heel, a rubber sole, a square cut shaped goring, and a slim chisel shaped toe. The difference between the Comfort Craftsman and the Craftsman model is the medium thickness rubber sole where the Craftsman model has a more traditional leather sole. This also has a comfort lining on the inside, basically a soft rubber insole and a rubber cavity midsole. The Comfort Craftsman is a very sleek looking boot. A single piece of leather is formed around a slim last giving it a very clean look without any stitching around other panels on the back. The line at the back of the boot from the ankle down to the heel is continuous and elegant, almost like a dress shoe. Many Australians will wear the RM Williams with a suit, more particularly those smooth grain leather black or brown models. This one in the tobacco suede is more casual because of the leather used, but I think you can get away with that tan colour under a navy suit. It stands out more, but personally I think that's fine. This means of course you can also wear them in business casual situations, say with a non matching pants and a blazer kind of outfit, or you can dress them down a bit with dressy dark jeans and a sports coat. The slim Chelsea design is very versatile so you can also wear them with light wash and faded jeans along with work shirts or polo shirts and very casual tops. RM Williams, the company, was founded by Reginald Murray Williams in 1932. RM was a swag man which is an itinerant labour in the outback sheep and cattle stations of South Australia in and amongst the Flinders Rangers where he learned leather working from another mustering horseman. RM took to leather work like a duck to water so he decided to make a living making leather goods. He started with making saddles at first and made up enough money to start a shop at 5 Percy Street in the suburb of Prospect in Adelaide. That address is still emblazoned on the pull tabs of the boots and is now the site of the RM Williams Heritage Museum. RM continued to make leather goods but his most popular product turned out to be his boots used by farmers and station hands as a work and riding boot. What set them apart was the construction from a single piece of leather which enhanced their durability because there was only one seam but it also created a timeless clean look. The company grew in Prospect making RM a very rich man. The boots caught on with gentlemen who had never worked on a farm and by the 1980s was worn by city bankers and stockbrokers wearing suits. In the 1990s the company really took off internationally. RM had sold out by then and the company changed hands several times across the 2010s and for a period was owned by the Louis Vuitton luxury conglomerate brand. A few years ago it was bought back into private Australian ownership by Western Australian mining magnet Andrew Forrest. Okay so let's look at the construction. As usual I'll start from the bottom and I'll work my way up. These are put together using the Goodyear welter method of construction. In this case a 270 degree Goodyear welt. Goodyear welting is recognized as the gold standard way of connecting the uppers to the sole. A strip of leather called the welt goes around the edge of the boot and it's sewn to the inside of the boot. Then the sole is attached and sewn to the welt on the outside. In this way the welt forms a moisture barrier between sole and uppers so that Goodyear welting is technically more water resistant than some other construction methods. If you want to go into the detail of Goodyear welting I've done a video up here which you can check out. In this case this is a 270 degree Goodyear welter boot. That means the welt goes three quarters of the way from one side above the arch across to the other side. The heel is glued and nailed directly to the uppers and to the insole construction. This produces that nice line from ankle to heel that I mentioned earlier. The sole here is an oil resistant rubber that's molded with the kind of grippy, gritty texture at the bottom. It's a flat sole with no lugs, studs or wavy lines but it's still very grippy. There is a leather midsole with a cork filler, a fiberglass shank for stability and arch support and in this comfort cross inversion a leather insole and then a foam comfort insole with a slight build up in the arch for arch support. Before I go on I'll just talk about the fiberglass shank. A shank is a piece of hard material in a flat stick shape that bridges the gap between the heel and the ball of the foot. It provides arch support and torsional stability when you're on rough ground. The fiberglass shank is particularly useful if you're a traveler because it's airport friendly of course. Some people say that a steel shank is best. Some talk about the built up leather arch support and shanks of those heavy Pacific Northwest boots. But you know to me having regularly and frequently worn RM Williams Chelsea boots the fiberglass shank has never let me down. The heels and toes are lightly structured with artificial stiffeners to keep their shape. Inside the boots are fully lined with a soft I think it's a lamb skin lining, very soft. The upper leather is a suede from the famous Charles F. Stead tannery in the UK. Stead has been in operation since the 1890s and today specializes in high quality suede and some other exotic animal hides like moose and kudu. Now suede is a split leather. A cowhide is usually pretty thick and after first tanning to preserve the leather it's horizontally split through a rolling cutter to split the hide between the top half that's used for smooth grain finishing or buffed into newbuck or turned over for rough out and the bottom half that's used as suede. As such, suede is a soft supple leather with a fibrous nap. In the case of stead suede the nap is soft, short and really feels luxurious. This color is called tobacco for I guess fairly obvious reasons. As I said before this is one piece of leather with only one seam up the back so presumably lasting the uppers, it's pulling and twisting of it to fit the shoe shape mould called the last, presumably that's not an easy thing to do with one piece of leather. At the top of the shaft are two pull tabs. With two pull tabs you can open the neck of the boot to slip your feet in and then pull them up. A much smoother operation. Most Australian Chelsea's like Blunstone's for example all have two pull tabs. The goreing is nicely elastic but it's quite firm and it takes a lot to wear the elastic out and get it flabby. Now that is important because the goreing is what will snap back on your ankles to keep them snug. The one thing about Chelsea boots is that you have to get the fit right so that they don't keep sliding off your feet every time you take a step and this goreing helps you keep it tight. It's okay to have a roomy rounded toe box but if the fit around your ankles is flabby you find the boots slipping off every time you take a step. In the case of RM Williams somehow they seem to have a last that fits most people's feet around the ankles and the instep if you buy the right size. So let's talk sizing. I measure 7.5 in UK and Aussie Brannock sizing and I'm just a little over average width. In US sizing that's Brannock true to size of 8.5 in D width. Basically US sizing numbers are one number up from UK sizing numbers. RM Williams have a very slim last and with my Brannock being a little over 7.5 in length and a little over G in width I find I have to size up to an 8G, a half size up my true to size Aussie Brannock measurement. The length is a tiny tiny bit more than I'd like but the width is perfect. Just in case you comment that I should just go a width up I have tried a 7.5 in H width and I was swimming in the forefoot. Once fitted though these wore perfectly out of the box. There was no breaking because the suede is soft and supple and the rubber sole with the comfort insole was immediately comfy. Shock absorption is pretty good and arch support pretty good. I have student these all day with no pain and certainly no aching arches at the end of the day. Being suede leather care is pretty easy. There's no real need to condition these. Mainly the task is to keep them clean. You can wipe them with a damp cloth if they get dusty and then I'd brush them with a stiff suede brush. These suede brushes are sometimes made with stiff nylon bristles or you can get those with a core of copper bristles surrounded by a ring of nylon bristles. The idea is to brush the naps so that it stands up the wrong way against the grain. That freshens it up and then you brush them the right way so that the nap lies down again. One way to clean them, another way to tidy them up. If they get dirty with ingrained dirt or spotted by some liquid you can use a gentle suede shampoo. If they eventually feel really, really dry you can use a spray conditioner like a Saphir or a Tarago product. Never use oils or waxy conditioners on suede. You're gonna wet the nap down, flatten it and ruin it. One thing though, suede particularly these light colors they're not particularly waterproof unless they're from a range of Steads waterproof suede. So the first thing I do when I take it out of the box is to waterproof it with a waterproofing spray again either a Saphir or a Tarago product. Check the description below and I'll have links there to suede care products. Now they are affiliate links but it won't cost you more and that'll help me keep this channel going with the few pennies I get from it. Now let's take a look at their cost and are they worth it. When I bought my first pair of RM Williams in the late 1980s they were around the mid 300 Aussie dollar range. After the various hedge fund and luxury goods takeovers of the brand in the late 90s and the 2000s their price went up to the heavy $500 range. Today they sell for $649 Australian dollars. Well I suppose they still compare reasonably well in price anyway to imported American boots. After all, whites boots sell here for nearly 1000 Aussie and they don't make Chelsea's. But are these built like the tanks that are the whites, nicks, vibeaux even like the red wings? Honestly no, I don't think so. They are well made. I think they're more in the range of boots like Grant Stone and Wolverine and Beckett Simonon. So we're talking boots in the US $300 to $400 range, or in the Aussie $450 to $600 range. So a little under the RM's listed price in comparison. Now I'm a management consultant and a chartered accountant by training and I know that product pricing is dependent on a number of things that build up to the price. You add up the cost of the materials, the cost of labor, you add manufacturing costs like machine depreciation, rents, then you add retail costs like maybe if you run retail stores, the overhead cost of running stores. And then you add your desired profit margin. That's where the price hikes come in. A reasonable profit margin for a mid-range boot company might be say 20 to 50%. But if you were a luxury brand, you don't just consider what a nice profit would be, you also consider what your luxury name means. So most luxury brands add a brand name factor. Think of Rolex. And that could take your margin to incredible heights. That's economics folks, supply and demand. It seems that demand has demanded a price of $649 Australian dollars. Is it worth it? For the brand name, like say wearing a shirt with a polo player in the chest. Yeah, maybe. Is it worth it for a very nice, comfortable, well-made boot? Honestly, I don't think so. I think it would be worth it at around the mid-500s, not the high-600s. Well, there's controversy for you. Anyway, in summary, I think this is a pretty awesome boot. It's very stylish, very versatile, and in this suede makeup, quite striking under any kind of outfit. It's made well, uses a minimum of artificial material, except where there's some logic in using fiberglass and composites and rubber and foam for comfort. I can attest to its long-term hardiness, having owned many pairs of these over many years. And then there's the price. Not good in my opinion. And where's it all heading as a luxury brand? Does it keep going up? Oh, well, there you have it. And of course, don't forget to click on the like if you like the review. And if you're not already subscribed, click on subscribe and YouTube will notify you so that you don't miss the reviews and boot comparisons and controversy and videos about the makers and the companies when I upload them. Until then, guys and girls, take care and I'll see you soon.