 G'day how are you going? Welcome to Bootlossophy and my name is Tech. I'm on Wajik Country in Perth, Western Australia and I recognize the traditional owners of this land. Today I'm reviewing this, the Australian company Thomas George Collection's Frio service boot in CF Stead, Swade. This Frio service boot is made by Australian company the Thomas George Collection. The Thomas George Collection, a bit of a mouthful for a footwear brand, was founded in Melbourne in 2020 by James Seaford. This was after a year of searching for the right product. Seaford is the owner of Trimley which has been around for quite a while and sells high quality boot and shoe trees, shoe stretches and a really extensive range of shoe care products. Seaford wanted to expand beyond the shoe care business and produce quality footwear under the Aussie $400 mark. In a very similar pattern to the new American direct consumer brands like Thursday and Parkhurst, he found that you either paid over that price for RM Williams or you bought overpriced glued shoes sold at fashion stores or you bought imported English and European quality models at well over $700. He sought a shoemaker in Australia but couldn't find any willing or capable of making shoes to the quality and scale he wanted. He then started looking overseas in Europe but found that many manufacturers had very opaque disclosures and in fact had theirs made in places like Eastern Europe and China anyway. Seaford specifically looked for the factories that respected labour laws and looked after their workforce and really couldn't find one until he stumbled on Japanese shoemaker Fugashin. Fugashin makes quality world footwear out of factories in Japan and Vietnam to be sold in primarily high-end Japanese outlets. After more research he decided they were the right fit as partners and signed an agreement with Fugashin to produce Thomas George collection boots in the Vietnam factory. Currently they make men's boots and shoes, a captoe and a plain-toe service boot and dress captoe oxford shoes, a semi-broke captoe oxford and a penny loafer. This is this suede plain-toe service boot called the Frio. Frio is an Aussie abbreviation mainly used by us in the west and it stands for the port city of Fremantle. Living in Perth Frio is about 20km south of Perth or about half an hour's drive through our riverside suburbs. It's western Australia's main port city and is surrounded by surfing and swimming beaches. The Frio service boot is said to pay homage to the Australia's beach culture and in a nod to the Aussie military service boot from the First World War. It's based on the other plain-toe service boot called the Turon and made on the Jackalast named after Albert Jacka, Victoria Cross. This last is a modernised version of an Australian boot last used in World War I. The Jackalast has a slimmer sleeker toe box unlike the captoe service boot in the Thomas George collection, which is a full-on bull-nose captoe service boot much closer to those wartime Australian Army boots. The Frio comes only in this mid-blue water-resistant suede from Charles F. Stead in Leeds, United Kingdom. Apart from the blue suede it's a classic six-inch service boot built on a studded sole and a block heel with an open derby or derby lacing enclosure. While many think the mid-blue colour may not be as versatile as brown or black boots, I'm back to differ. It is a casual boot for sure, so no suits, at least not in the traditional sense, but if you wanted to stretch a suit you could wear it with a navy suit, dress down, perhaps with a denim shirt and no tie. However, most probably you'd wear it on casual occasions or semi-dressy occasions. I think for example you could wear it to a wedding, say, with neat pants and a button-up shirt and a blazer. You can wear it with classy cacicinos or brown or grey or black fire pocket pants, almost anything of an earth or neutral shade. These are still a bit new, but already they go with jeans of any kind of wash and up top with polo shirts or button downs or even a clean unwrinkled t-shirt. Personally, I think it's a matter of watching how you match the blue. It's a colour game, not a game about how dressy or casual you are. I mean think of something like a light coloured pair of chinos, a navy shirt and these on your feet. If what you wear matches this blue, then you can wear anything. In terms of construction, I think this is the first boot I've brought to you that's a stitch down construction. In this case it's a welted stitch down construction. Just like a Goodyear welted boot, the welt goes around the edge of the boot and the uppers are stitched to the welt. But in a stitch down, instead of the uppers being turned inwards and stitched on the inside to the inner edge of the welt, in the stitch down method the uppers are turned out, laid on top of the welt and then stitched down using what's called a rapid stitch all the way through to the sole. In this case it's a double stitch down, so that you can see here above the welt the blue that is the uppers turned out stitched with two stitches. The first on the inside just goes through the front half of the boot where the uppers are turned out. The second outside stitch goes about three quarters around the front of the boot over the turned out uppers and then along the welt to just over the heels similar to a 270 degree Goodyear welt. All the stitching and a lot of glue means that the boot is pretty impervious to water. There's some argument as to whether stitch down or Goodyear welting is better for water resistance and you'll find plenty arguing one way or the other. I personally haven't felt any difference in moderate rain without walking through a river or anything. There's also an argument that stitch down is harder to re-sole and when you do the re-sole you'll have to unpick the stitches that go through the turned out uppers, meaning that when you re-stitch you'll have to go through exactly the same stitch holes or it'll look a bit ugly and it might affect water resistance. The outsole is a Vibram studded outsole and it looks very similar to day-night studded outsole. For those of you who don't know Vibram and Dana are two long-established outsole manufacturers. Vibram is from Italy established in 1937 and famous for their commando lug sole and day-night is from England established in 1894 but famous for their studded sole invented in 1910 that looks exactly like this. The heel is a stacked leather heel with a rubber heel top lift for shock absorption and grip. I find this day-night like sole comfortable enough and pretty grippy, bearing in mind I don't have to walk on ice and snow. It's fine walking in the rain on wet pavements and on wet or slippery supermarket or pub floors. Okay moving upwards while staying inside the boot there is a cork midsole filler that's expected to mold your feet as they compress into it thus making it more and more comfy for your feet. Embedded in the cork filler is a steel shank, a piece of steel bridging the gap between the heel and the toe pad giving the boot some rigidity and arch support. On top of that is a leather insole footbed. I think with a little foam backing because I feel a little give at least under the heel. The inside of the boot is fully lined with calfskin leather and even the ungusseted tongue is lined. The hardware is a dark nickel. There are five generous sized eyelets and two speed hooks. They feel reasonably sturdy they don't feel like bending but while the speed hooks are backed with a washer the eyelets are just pressed into a star shape pressing at the back. As I said the hooks look and feel sturdy the backing of the eyelets not so much they do look suspicious that they might tear through the lining leather in time. There is a lightly structured thermoplastic toe stiffener very lightly structured and the same is used at the external heel counter covered by one piece backstay covering the whole heel counter and going up the back covering the stitch there. The stitching all around is pretty good no loose or frayed stitches the stitch down stitching and the stitching of the pieces together is very even with very uniform stitch density. I can't tell from looking at this or from any information available but stitch down is usually hand stitched. If this is hand stitched A it's pretty cheap for all of that hand labour and B it is an exceptional job. The uppers are of course suede from Charles Ofsted in Leeds, England. Suede is made from the bottom half of split leather. When a thick foregrain hide is tanned it's run through a splitting roller which splits the leather horizontally. The top half is then treated as a foregrain leather or buffed into a top grain leather and tanned into smooth grain leather. The bottom half of that horizontal split is sent to tanneries like Siya Stead to be made into suede. It would have lost its grain or top side and it sanded and smoothed into suede with looser fibres and a nappy feel. Stead is of course the world's premier suede manufacturer. It was established in the 1890s but really started going in 1904 when Charles Stead the founder moved to a factory in Leeds. The original leathers were made for book binding, chamois and so-called fancy leathers for wallets, purses and bags. It was in the 1920s that Stead started producing suede leathers for shoes and then in the 1960s Stead's suede started getting picked up by shoe manufacturers around the world beginning with clarks. Today Stead is recognised for its high quality suedes as well as some exotic leather made from the Antelope family including moose, elk and kudu from southern Africa that utilised as a feature the natural blemishes, cuts and grazes caused by the environment the animals live in. This version of the suede is thin enough soft with a very short nap that feels more like a soft cloth or a short nap velvet. The blue not quite navy more of a mild or even royal air force blue is quite striking. Taking care of suede is partly tricky and partly pretty simple. Assuming you don't get these too dirty in normal urban way to the office or on the night out all you have to do is brush them with a stiff suede brush to keep them clean and to raise the nap every now and then. Suede brushes are different from soft horsehair brushes they are stiffer and sometimes they're made from copper wire bristles or copper wire inside stiff pig's hair bristles. If they do get dirty you can still use the brush to brush off dirt, dry mud and grime, wait until they dry first of course and then just use a small round motion with a light hand you're not sandpapering a block of wood or anything. If you have to you can brush away from the direction of the nap especially to raise it once it's been flattened as long as once they're clean you brush back in the direction of the nap. The nap when these are so short it's hard to know which is the direction of the nap so all you need to do is brush until it starts to look uniform. If your suede gets more marked than under normal wear say oil or grease gets onto it you can use a suede eraser. Yeah literally it's a rubber eraser like what we used to use at school or at least what we used if you were my generation who wrote everything down instead of typing it. Use moderate pressure and rub over any marks. It's not how hard you press but rather how patient and persistent you are. If they're even more marked than that like say if you ran through muddy oil in suede boots then you can use a suede cleaner basically it's a gentle suede shampoo. They often come as sprays and I'll put some links to them in the description below. Can you condition suede? I think technically you can but it's a dry leather so I wouldn't condition them all the time unless they really are showing signs of dryness and the creasing looks like they might crack. You can use spray conditions and there are roll-on conditioners. I actually use Timbaland suede and newbuck roll-on conditioners because I finally don't darken the leather and I'll put links down below too. And finally you should spray them with a suede waterproofing protector now and then. These put a waterproof surface on them rather like scotch guard. I usually use a Terago product and I'll link to that below. Now let's take a look at sizing. This one is tricky especially if you look at their sizing guide on the website but let's try to make sense of it. Let's start by remembering that as an Aussie brand they're using UK size numbers rather than US size numbers. By that I mean that usually UK size numbers are one number down from a US size number. So in my case on a brand new device I size at UK 7.5 and in US size numbers I'm one number up or a US 8.5. In width terms I'm average or G width in the UK measure and D width in the US measure. As most US boot manufacturers size large in their boots in fact I usually size a half down from true in my US boots so in iron ranges for example I take an 8D instead of an 8.5D as I do in Grant Stones, Parkhurst, Truman, countless others. In these I took the UK equivalent of my normal US size a US 8D or in Thomas George collection terms a 7G. You can use this sizing guide just as long as you ignore that UK size column they show there. What they show there is that UK sizing is only a half number down from US sizing and their own sizing is a full size number down from US sizing. That's really confusing because they've got it wrong. UK size numbers are as I've said one number down from US not half down. Then what makes their size guide even more confusing is under your Brannock size they say that if you have a D width size a half down which is what I did my going from 7.5 to 7 they say that if you're an E width you should select your Brannock size go true to size. I had to think this through about five times before I wrote my notes for this review. I think this is basically the problem when they have a last that's one width only instead of having a last in an in a D and an E say they have one last and they have to advise you to play with the length to fit wider feet in. Okay let's try to simplify this if you're Australian or from the UK and you have average width feet take your Brannock size and ask for a half size down. If you're Australian and from the UK and you have wider feet say E or double E I go true to your Brannock size or even half size up. If you're US with the average feet take your US Brannock size go a half down and then go one number down to get to the UK size that you should order. If you're from the US with wide feet take your US Brannock size go one number down as you order. If you're European I give up maybe go to the UK equivalent of the European size you normally take in boots. Anyway after making that as clear as mud these in the right size are comfortable enough. They're not exceptionally comfortable the insoles a bit flat and the arch support is no better than okay. The insoles and the midsoles are hard thin and not super shock absorbing. I have one them all day but not standing all day and while I wasn't uncomfortable I'm just not sure I find them totally comfy. On the other hand the suede is soft the lining is soft and the thin midsole didn't need breaking in so breaking was a breeze no pain no blisters. So what's the value of these boots? They're self of 398 Aussie dollars I think that's a pretty fair price. They compare well in price with any other local product. They compare well with mail order American boot maker products Parkhurst, Redwing, Ellen Edmonds, Grant Stone and other boots of the type will land in Australia for at least a hundred dollars more. In Aussie dollar terms Thursday boots will come in at about the same price. Quality wise they compare about the same as Thursday captains say maybe in QC and materials terms a bit better. They are made in Vietnam if that bothers you it doesn't bother me obviously they're made to a good set of specs by a manufacturer who makes high quality shoes for a fussy market in Japan and they say that they check on labor treatment and welfare. What gets produced in Charles F. Stead suede and otherwise good materials is a pretty good product. Supporting Australia yeah they're an Aussie company and they've been around for a while I feel that I'm supporting Aussie in this otherwise unavoidably global economy. Overall I'd say their value matches the price. There you have it my review of the Thomas George collection Frio service boots. I hope you liked the review and if you did please don't forget to click on the like and also on subscribe especially if you don't want to miss the other boot reviews and other boot related stuff that I'm going to film and upload. Until then stay safe and I'll see you then.