 G'day. How are you going? Welcome to Bootlossophy. If you haven't been here before, my name is Tech and I'm coming to you from Wajik Country, Nungabuja in Western Australia. Now, today I'm going to do an unboxing and an initial impressions review of a pair of Helm Zind boots. So this is the box that the Helm boots come in. It's a very plain sort of dark grey box. It came in a bigger shipping box of course and it says clearly this is a pair of Helm so we know what it is. Inside the box what comes with it is a spare pair of laces, a boot bag and on the boot bag is printed this is a pair of Helm just in case you didn't know. Lots of paper wrapping and nicely protected on the inside are the Helm Zind boots. They're nicely packaged I must say both of them. Just put that to one side and inside each boot they're stuffed with paper just to protect the shape I guess during delivery. So we'll take a look at these boots in greater detail. So out of the box let's take a look at these Zind boots in some detail. It's obviously a kind of service boot, dress boot type pattern quite simple I think in its design. Just a quarter panel here, quarter panel there and the vamp. This stitching here actually stitches the inside heel cover, heel counter cover so that's not a panel that's just a stitching on the quarter panel and then there's a single strip backstay with a pull loop. The leather, the immediate feel of the leather feels really good. You can see that, oh I hope you can see in this camera that it's a it's foregrain you can see all the pores and hair holes and things. I think it's ever so slightly corrected because I can't see particular scars and things so it's just been nicely dressed. Really nice. It feels good underhand, it feels soft. It's not pull-up, it doesn't feel waxy like chrome excel but definitely soft. The stitching on the uppers including this little box stitch here is very nicely done, very neat. Double stitch there, double stitch there, single stitch up the backstay, little box stitch there, single stitch along the collar and there is a little, I don't know if the camera can pick this up but there is a little pattern there which I think is deliberate. I don't think it's wheeling anything because it seems to go through. It's fully lined and the tongue is fully lined as well. The tongue is semi-gusted up to, what is it, 1, 2, 3, sort of somewhere around the fourth, between the third and the fourth eyelet so it's up to there so I think you can splash for a puddle and you'll be fine up to there and it's also really good in stopping the tongue from slipping from side to side which often happens with me. I like these thick round cotton laces, they look kind of, you know, chunky, settled. It's a very slim last. It looks sleek from the side. It looks very sleek from the top, the almond shaped toe. It's a very narrow last so it looks sleek shall I say. Let's see if it's narrow when I put them on my feet. I'm a little concerned because my feet doesn't like these sort of sharply turned in toes but we'll see. It feels solid. There's a solid, I'm guessing, it wouldn't be leather at this price. I'm guessing there's a celastic sort of counter in there. The toe is structured. I'm guessing again celastic. Nicely put together. What would you say these are brass or slightly darkened chrome? The chrome on the inside, they have washers so that stops you scratching your tongue over time. So that's always a good touch. Always a good touch. I like that. Fully lined I think I've said. Fully lined in the vamp as well, yes. So vamping up the shaft. If you go down to the sole construction, it's a Blake rapid stitch construction which I'll talk about in a minute. But if you look at the layers in the sole and this is a really interesting thing that I'll talk about in a minute as well. If you look at the layers in the sole, there is a leather, I believe that's a welt, which is interesting for a Blake rapid stitch shoe using a welt. Then there is a rubber midsole and that's the famous white line that you see in all helm boots. It's kind of a signatureity. Some people don't like it. I do. It makes it quite iconic. It has a leather sole which you can see running full slip leather sole all the way to the heel and then the heel is built up with one, two I think possibly three stacks of leather. I'm assuming this is real leather. Then there's that rubber insert for the grip here and then a leather top lift. If you turn your attention to the sole, this is very interesting. Most leather shoes, you have to put on a sort of sole protector. But this has one built in so you can see the leather sole and you can see it goes all the way through. They cut a little insert out to put this patch of leather on which I really like. It means it gives you the grip while giving you also the flexibility and breathability of a leather sole. Leather heel top lift you can see is nailed in with some brass tacks. It's a Blake rapid stitch so let me talk about that. It's a Blake rapid stitch but from what I can see it includes a welt. Now normally a Blake rapid stitch means you have your uppers that are turned in. The inside of the uppers are sewn directly to the midsole and then the outside of the midsole is sewn through to the outsole. That's the normal Blake rapid stitch and what that means is similar to Goodyear welting you don't have this outside stitch going inside the boot like a Blake stitch construction boot is where this is sewn directly through everything into the inside of the uppers. In this case there's a welt involved so I think what they do is they turn the uppers in they sew the uppers to the welt and the midsole and then they run a stitch all the way through the sole. It looks like 360 degrees no it looks probably 270 degrees up to there and that stitch goes through the outside of the welt so it doesn't interfere with the uppers at all. Blake rapid stitch is apparently just as recraftable and re-sollable as Goodyear welt. There's a lot of snobbery about Goodyear welt at shoes but Blake rapid stitch as far as I'm aware you can change the outsole once that wears off shouldn't be a problem. So really I mean I'm quite impressed that's a really well put together boot for US $295. So let's talk a bit about Helm before I put these on feet. Helm is quite a newish company starting in 2009. They first made their boots in Turkey then moved production to the US and now the range of boots are made in the US and in Brazil. Helm is based in Austin, Texas and have the flagship brick and mortar store in Austin. Other than this flagship store and about a half a dozen stockists across the US you can check their website where they are. Their main sales model is through their website. I'll leave a link below to the website. I've reviewed their Johnson boot before a model they sadly no longer make but currently they have eight different models from service boots to work boots and dress boots and chuckers and each model has four or five different letters available sourced from Brazil and the Dominican Republic. Helm stated goals to create a boot that's versatile, timeless and functional and able to be worn in the workshop or boardroom. I'd say in the ZIN the goal is achieved although maybe more boredom than workshop but anyway time to get these on foot and see how they fit and feel. So this is proof of concept let's see how they fit. The toe looks quite narrow so I'm interested in oh hello that slipped in quite nicely it's a fully lined boot so I'm not even sure I need the pull loop no slips in really nicely. What was I saying oh yes the slimness of the toe made me a little worried but my feet slipped in very easily and you know I don't feel any pressure there at all. I wear a US 8.5D in my true to size boots that's what my Brannock measurement is 8.5D in the US Brannock machine and but in most of my other boots most of my American heritage boots and you know if you are a regular in my channel I wear US 8D I size a half size down. This is no different in the helm these are 8D in helm boots. When I looked at the last or the shape of the last coming out of the box I was a little concerned because it's quite a sharp almond shaped toe and usually when that happens the outside edge of my little toe gets a bit cramped. I don't feel that at all. It curves around the ball of my foot quite well I expected it to be quite tight but it's not so the slim look is quite deceiving which actually is quite nice because if I'm wearing these with a suit it looks sleek and I'm not in pain. Size-wise in an 8D I think that's perfect for my feet. I'm just a little under a thumbs width away from the tip. The ball of my feet fit quite well and from what I can see where I bend my feet is about where the boot is designed to bend as well so shouldn't be a lot of heel slip and there isn't although yes there is a little bit of heel slip but I think that's because the sole construction is actually quite thick. I mean we saw the thickness of the outsole there. I think that needs to be broken in a little bit and interesting as I bend you know if you don't have really good leather when you're bending your vamp creases and rolls obviously this creases as I bend it but it's giving me very fine crystalline cracks rather than big creases and rolls. You know on foot this feels very similar to chrome XL it's not it's not as oily and waxy but the feel of it is really nice full grain leather the feel on foot is as good as the feel underhand as I took it out of the box I'm very impressed the underfoot the foam or poron sort of insole padding makes it immediately comfortable I'm not feeling any like you know this is a very hard insole and I've got to break this in as I stand on it this is immediately comfortable some people don't like it because it breaks down a lot faster but you know I prefer to be able to walk in my boots then to suffer for three weeks and then eventually walking them yeah I like them fit is good comfort is good definitely two thumbs up well done so there you have it the unboxing and my initial impressions I don't think I remember to say that these cost on their website 295 US dollars let's look at the value on that just just from these first impressions and I might update this when I do my further review but for now I think of that price you want to compare them with boots like Thursday's made in USA Vanguard those self I think about US $265 under that $300 level you also get boots like Huckbury's house brand the Rhodes boots they have a couple of different models and then you want to look at say the Farragut Mocktoe and maybe the Redwing Mocktoe both of us are sort of skirting the $200 level look I think these compare really well with the Huckbury Rhodes boots in in their various models the leathers compare very nicely I think the construction and the stitching and the tightness of it all compares rather well the Thursday Vanguard's are I suppose you might call it a sort of more tougher boot it's a more of a field boot so they're different in the sense that they're not as finely finished but I think both are in that same category of good value for money so overall I'd say 295 US this is fair value this is a very versatile boot and I think for that price you're doing pretty well I'm going to leave a link below to the Helm website so you're going to have to take a look at these boots and and play around with the website and see what you think don't forget though before you go press the like button and make sure you subscribe if you haven't already so that's it guys take care and I've got other videos coming so until then look after yourselves