 G'day folks. How you going? Welcome to Boot Lossophy. My channel about boots and what's behind them in terms of materials makers, their craft and philosophies. If you haven't been here before, my name is Tech and before I start I want to acknowledge the Wajik people of the country I live and work on. Today, I'm diving into my Grail Boot, the White's MP Boot. This one in Cinnamon Wax Flesh So these are MP boots made by White's, the 160 to 170 year old bootmaker. There is some wiggle room when you talk about how old White's is, because it does depend on if you go back to Edward White in the 1850s, who first put the name White into their shoes and boots, or back to when his son or later his grandson started running this company as we know it. I guess most people would identify Edward's grandson Otto White at the beginning of this current company. He started with the company between the World Wars and by that time, after a peripatetic route across the country in the US, the company was firmly homed in Spokane, Washington, where it still is. Otto, by the way, was the one who invented the Arch-Ease Arch Support System. And for those who don't know, that period at White saw them become famous as the Pacific Northwest or PNW bootmaker famous for supplying the loggers and packers of the timber industry there, as well as providing boots to smoke jumpers or forest fire fighters. White's remained a family and employee owned company until they were bought out in 2014 by La Crosse Footwear based in Portland, Oregon, which is a subsidiary of multi conglomerate Amart, a Japanese company. In various Reddit threads and social media comments, a lot of Americans saw this as a sign of reducing standards and the end of an American company. Now, not being American, I guess I see it a bit differently. For as many loud commentators saying quality has dropped, there are at least twice as many who disagree. I don't see it as necessarily not being an American company anymore. I mean, the management and workforce remain American. They have retained independent management as far as I can see. They have kept up manufacturing and employment in Spokane and pay local and federal taxes. Yeah, I guess profits go to La Crosse and Oregon. And in turn, La Crosse profits go to Japan. But a lot of dollars, including American supply chain working capital, get left behind in that corporate and global economic trail. As for these MP boots, they are a newish innovation for the company. Whites are steeped in workbook history and culture. But in the 2000s, they realized that the trend of Americana heritage boots left them with a gap in their range, those more dressy boots that still retain their workbook DNA. Looking at the MP boots, handling them, there is no doubt they are made tough. Yet they are more mainstream than some of white's workbook models like their smoke jumpers and other fire boots or their loggers and linemen work boots. That is clearly intentional, placing them in a range that they call lifestyle boots. They look like a military style combat boot from the mid 20th century, capable of being worn in the field or at the mess in the barracks, or even to go up to the local bar in town. MP, of course, stands for military police, signaling that design aesthetic. This particular pair is the MP M1. It's distinguished from the MP Sherman model by a single piece backstay. The MP Sherman has a two piece backstay, and you can check out my review of the model up here. Apart from the single or two piece backstay, you can get either model as a plain toe or cap toe boot, and they can come in two types of outsole. Day night like these, as well as the half lug commando sole. White's offer them in a variety of earth colored leathers, all of them from Horween and Chromacel or their waxed flesh. White sell them direct through their own website, and they're also available through Bakers Boots and a number of other retailers like Division Road, Franklin and Poe, and Brooklyn Clothing. If you're interested in getting a pair of white MP boots after this review, it is worth checking out the different retailers as well as White's, because the retailers do different collaboration makeups for a twist on the white stock models. They change up from the stock Chromacel and include some quite interesting leathers, including CF Stead Leathers from Division Road to make your mouth water. You may also have to wait if you order from White's, but some of the outlets, especially those with collab boots, should have some ready made. I'll leave links to the various outlites in the description below. They are affiliate links. You don't pay anymore, but if you buy, I do get a small kickback to help me fund this channel. This particular makeup of the MPM1 is made in cinnamon waxed flesh. I'll talk about this leather later, but in this dark brown color with a lot of cinnamon orangey brownie underneath, it's a ruggedly casual boot. So the kind of outfits that work would center around jeans of a variety of colors and ruggedly casual tops like fleeces and t-shirts or work shirts. I have worn them in a smart casual, but I find that you still need to retain the jeans and rugged collared shirts. They can be worn out tracking on a walk or at casual country events. So anything you want to wear in those scenarios that go with the great outdoors would be perfect. Obviously you can also wear them as work boots in light labor tasks, working in your workshop for example, but I don't think I'd wear them to a building site if I'm actually doing some concreting. As I said earlier, you can watch my previous review of the White's MP Sherman, which will give you a lot of information about White's and the MP boots. So I'll dive straight into construction here and concentrate on the areas that are different. Okay, so firstly, these are built on their 55 last. A last is a foot-shaped mold that's also the shape of what you want the finished boot to look like. The bootmaker stretches the uppers over the last to create the shape of the boot being made. When I reviewed the Shermans, those were on the modified berry last, which White's now called the MP last. I said then that the MP last was long and narrow like a cigar shape. The berry last, which is, if it was unmodified, is a legendary dressy last and is used by Alden to create some of their dressy boots. The 55 last here on the other hand is a wider last with a pronounced arch making room for the Arch-E's arch support. White's Arch-E's last go back to Otto White's designs. Those lasts tend to slope downwards, but not by such a pronounced slant as some of say Knicks boots, which are high-heeled, high-arch boots. Otto White basically designed a super-thick leather shank to be built into the arch under the last itself. They used 12-ounce leather in the shank that's four and a half to five and a bit millimeter thickness and there's layers of it carved into an arch shape supporting your feet. Inside it's very pronounced. When you put them on you feel it immediately and it really sometimes feels like you're standing on a ladder rung because it just, it pushes into your arch. Now that sounds terribly uncomfortable, but unless you have horribly flat feet it's not. It really is supportive and totally feels built to your feet. It makes me feel that I need to stand up straight as supporting my back. The uppers of the MP are attached to the sole using White's version of stitch down construction. Now normally a stitch down construction boot has the uppers stretched over the last and then the bottom of the uppers are flanged out and a midsole is stitched on to the flanged out uppers. Sometimes the flanged out uppers are actually stitched through a welt that strip of leather goes around the boot before it's then stitched through the midsole. This second method is known as the belt school in construction. It's Dutch and it's supposed to increase water resistance. At White's they use a version of stitch down that they call rolled welt stitch down. This is confusing so listen up and then when you finish you can go to division roads youtube channel and look for their White's boots factory tour video to see it in action. So at White's they hand sew through a channel in the leather insole through to the uppers leather and at that point sew it through another strip of leather made from the same leather as the uppers which forms the welt. That uppers leather welt now attached to the vamp is folded over to cover that inside stitch and then stitched down into the midsole on the outside. So if you look very carefully you'll see what looks like two pieces of leather in the welt. This is actually the uppers flanged out at the bottom and the rolled welt on top of it. You can also see the rolled bit right up against the edge of the vamp and then finally the stitched down stitch on top of both the rolled welt and the vamp. When you watch the factory visit video and watch them do this by hand it's a work of art and you have no problems understanding why those sell for 700 US dollars. But why do it this way? Well it's more durable. The uppers have less chance of ripping out of the stitches. It's water resistant. The moisture rolls off the flanged out edges and the rolled welt protects that internal stitch. It's recraftable. Whites can take out the stitching and replace the rolled welt while protecting the uppers underneath. My understanding is that the sole construction is all leather. There is some cork in the footbed but the insole is leather. The carved arch is shank is leather and the midsole is leather. This overbuilt nature means that it's a heavy boot. The pair weigh in at nearly two kilos or around four and a half pounds. In this version there is a full slip day night rubber sole that's glued and stitched onto the leather midsole. From the side the sole is not as thick as my half lugged sold shermons. Those have a midsole and a leather full length outsole on top of which is slapped on a thick commando lugged half rubber sole and totals over 20 millimeters or nearly an inch thick. These don't have that full leather outsole because of the day night full length rubber outsole so in profile the sole totals over I would say 10 millimeters or maybe about half an inch which I think you'll agree is still pretty chunky. The UK made day night is a hard rubber studded sole. It's low in profile and dressy if it needs to be. I find that it's grippy enough wherever I wear it. The heel is a low-looking block heel. Despite the 55 last and the arch ease all of that is more internal than external and so the heel looks well proportioned and is topped by a day night studded top lift. Inside the boot the insole is finished by a heel to arch comfort leather sock protector. The uppers in this make up is Horween's cinnamon wax flesh and I'll go into it in more detail in a minute. The leather is over two mils thick which is more than average. The toe box and heels are stiffened with salastic in the toe and I think leather in the heel counter. This make up has a cap toe and as I said earlier a one-piece backstay that keeps the external heel counter in place. The stitching all over is rugged without being messy. Again let me emphasize that whites were born as work boot makers who decided to make a dressy boot. The factory remained the same. The workers remained the same. So what happens is you create a dressier MP boot that's made as if it were a work boot with no real nod to being finely careful in things like the stitching. You need a stitch somewhere you put a stitch somewhere just like on your work boots you don't really have to worry about stitch density. So the end result is neat stitching which goes as far as I can see in line with where it should go but in no way are you going to compare the fineness of detail with say a pair of Grant Stone or Ellen Edmond boots. The tongue is a thinner piece of the same leather as the rest of the uppers and it's generously wide tongue. I guess you can fold it but I don't think it's actually wide enough to fold properly so I usually just splay it out around my ankle when I lace up. The hardware is solid antique brass. Four eyelets, three speed hooks and one eyelet at the top. They are not backed they just get pressed and splay out at the back but there's no feeling of weakness they are here to stay. The eyelets they're big enough to feed through these oil leather laces that come with the boot along with a spare flat wax cotton lace pair. The speed hooks are actually quite small they take a while to get used to hooking the laces behind them and until the laces broke in I often had to I often had them slipping and then hanging out like a five-year-old at Tide My Laces. Inside the boot is unlined mainly because it doesn't need to be lined being the smooth side of the leather which brings us to Cinnamon Waxed Flesh. It's tanned by the famous Horween Leather Company out of Chicago. If you've been living under a rock and not heard of Horween even under that rock you would have heard of Chromic Cell probably their most well-known leather. They make a number of waxed flesh leathers including Java wax flesh which they make for Truman boots. Waxed flesh is a tannage that's well on the way to becoming Chromic Cell but it's then flipped over to the rough side and heavily waxed. It's not a suede which is the lower half of a split hide it is a full grain leather but turned literally the rough side out and when I say it's heavily waxed I don't mean you put a layer of Kiwi wax polish on it it is heavily waxed like a layer of hot wax is sprayed or painted onto it and then allowed to harden into a protective skin. Being rough out and being so heavily waxed it means that it's really really tough and durable and waterproof with it at least while the wax layer stays thick and intact because one of the characteristics of this leather is that the wax will wear off to reveal the nap of the rough out in patches and in different degrees. When the wax is pristine I've heard some people say that you'd almost think it's smooth full grain leather rubbish you can see the rough in the rough out underneath it looks like the skin of a 90-year-old Jackaroo who's lived in the Simpson desert for a hundred years 90 years or dry and cracking and tough as leather some people like the smooth new look others can't wait for the patina to show through as the wax wears off and in the most extreme case it looks like a slightly depth rough out hide in the Java wax flesh the dark chocolate wax is applied on a dark brown nap in this case the underlying nap is a light brown gingery color hence cinnamon wax flesh on the inside the smooth side it looks like natural chrome excel you can see some of that color starting to appear on the tongue you might hate it but I'm really looking forward to wearing and scuffing this leather and that should give you a clue to leather care they need very little care because the more beat up they are the better they look however like all natural leathers make sure you keep them clean you don't need to go overboard just make sure you brush them off with a every second or so wave if they need it because they become muddy wipe them with a damp rag and if that doesn't shift it you'd be okay using saddle soap and a brush to clean them as for conditioning you almost can't go wrong with a waxy type of conditioner it's really how you want them to look afterwards if you want them to return to their darker smoother look then use a very waxy product with a lot of natural beeswax aerosol for lv on his channel has a video using birch's leather conditioner which has birch tar oil and beeswax as active ingredients I think smith's leather balm would probably be as effective for a less um return to normal approach you can use liquid waxy conditioners like venetian shoe cream that should condition leather and wet it on top without giving that hardened layer of wax look if you really really don't want to lose all that scraped up rough out nap I think big four would probably be the go so how should you size the mpm one in the 55 last in my review of the mp Sherman and the mp last I said to go a full size down from your brannock true size but go with up in this case in the 55 I would go a half size down from brannock and stay at your regular width I'm eight and a half d true to size as us sizing and in this pair I take an 8d and it fits me quite well in thick socks it gives me a reasonably firm handshake in medium thickness socks slightly more relaxed but still secure grip you can also check out my video on the different fit of the mp last and the 55 last up here the comfort is exceptional and although people talk about a white bite at break in I didn't get that the only thing was the stiffness of the heel counter and the single piece backstay that did take a bit of getting used to but if keeping your ankle secure is the name of the game this one wins that game underfoot the comfort because of the arch ease built in shank it is insanely good I honestly don't know if it's my imagination but apart from my feet feeling really supported I actually think I stand up straighter my back which is weak feels good after a day in these as for value I'm finding it hard to make that judgment call here first of all these are my grail boots the boots I wanted ever since I got into these heritage americana boot game so at any price I wanted them they sell for 900 Aussie dollars here in Australia on US websites and white retailers they sell at the US 600 high 600 and 700 dollar mark but they do have sales from time to time and some of the Colab boots could actually sell for less but what do you compare them with other mainstream boots in this service boot class thursday um oak street bootmakers ellen edmunds higgins mill um they're all dressier or built to price the closers might be vibrant at a few hundred dollars more you can't compare them with nicks work boots or any other pnw workbook different style and you wouldn't wear those to places that you would wear these so in a big sense these are in a class of your own I'm not going to say if they are worth it only that they are worth it to me and that's it then I bought the mp sherman a natural chrome excel first and that didn't satisfy my itch enough so I bought these and I also have another mpm one pair in british tan chrome excel I think that may have done it but don't quote me if you see me unbox another pair I love these boots whatever the leather last or back stay design and so stay with me click on like and subscribe to help me grow my channel and to remind you when I upload more reviews and boot comparisons until the next time stay well and see you soon