 Hello, my name is Tech, this is my channel Bootlosophy and today I'll be looking at the Echo Vitrus II Chelsea Boot, cement construction, comfortable, maybe not so cheap. Echo is a Danish brand, a high street manufacturer of cement construction boots and shoes. They have an extremely wide range and sell through their own websites as well as in their own branded high street and shopping centre stores as well as in some department stores. They own their own tanneries in Europe, Thailand, Indonesia and China. Their tanneries don't rely on just supplying their own shoe factories but also they supply to manufacturers of fashion, sports and car industries. Apparently they invest heavily in the environmental impact of the tannery process which can only be good. The shoes themselves are made in Portugal, Slovakia and Asia, including countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, such as Globalism in the business model of what's ultimately a global brand. This is the Vitrus Romanium II Chelsea Boot. I bought this about two years ago when I was short of a casual Chelsea boot, particularly in a suede. As you can see it's a very attractive sleek boot. It's a shorter Chelsea when you compare them to stalwarts like RM Williams but that fits into its sleek design. This suede has a short smooth nap and the tan colour, almost brown, they come in a number of different colours. This tan colour is pretty versatile and you can wear it with denim, chinos and I think even formal trousers in a variety of colours. It's very light, one of the characteristics of being cement constructed. It has a comfortable grippy sole, lots of shock absorption. I'll talk about the construction of shock absorption later but it is a very comfortable boot. Unfortunately I haven't really worn it as much as it deserves. You can see it's still pretty clean and unmarked. After I bought this boot I discovered Goodyear Welter Heritage Boots with my Thursday Captain boot as my first buy. Since then I've been buying a lot of heritage boots and the process of breaking them in properly as well as enjoying them in a good rotation of boots has meant that some of the more comfy and older boots that I have are feeling a little ignored. But these are my only echo boots and I used to favour them as a brand because I knew that they were of pretty good quality and as comfy as heck, I knew that from past experience. I guess now that I know about heritage style boots, their pricing I think is a little high in comparison but I'll go into that later. In the meantime I'd love it if you could click on the like and subscribe buttons below. I'm planning to review a whole load of boots on this channel so clicking on the like and the subscribe buttons will help me in getting this algorithm out to show this video to more people and you'll be reminded to watch my other videos as I upload them. Now taking a look at the construction method of the Vitrus II boot. It is cement constructed where the sole is glued onto the upper of the boot. More accurately they have direct injection PU soles that are directly injecting the uppers when the PU mixture is hot and molten. The theory is that it's more resilient than just glue and should not peel off ever. The method of construction makes the boot very light. It's only 488 grams per boot, 488, that's less than a kilogram for the pair. Highly flexible, shock absorbent and long lasting and hard wearing. Yes, I know, I haven't worn these boots much at all but I have owned other echo shoes and boots and I know that they've lasted me years. Of course there is a critical downside, they're not re-solvable. If you ever punch at the outsole or damage them in some way or wore them out, you can't take them to a cobbler to re-solve them, you just have to throw them away. Having your own tanneries is also a major advantage. It means that they can control quality practically from paddock to factory. There's absolutely nothing wrong with quality control here. Their leathers are a major marketing brand for them. Perhaps none of the quality of CF State's tannery in the UK, this word is corrected, highly treated but it is attractive, smooth and it's water resistant. As far as I can tell, they don't crease that much and can be easily cleaned. The uppers are lined with a nylon material that's soft to the touch and adds to the comfort. The goreng that's this elastic at the sides is resilient in its elasticity. I can't see it getting flabby after many wears which can happen to lower quality elastic goreng. The last is interesting, it's a little wider than I'd like at the waist but it is clearly suited to the average foot and it doesn't pinch anywhere. There was no breaking in required. It was comfortable when I tried this on at the store and comfortable as soon as I got them home. There is a single pull tab at the back. I'm used to Australian Chelsea boots that have two pull tabs front and back. The idea being that pulling on both helps to widen the collar so that it's easy to pull them onto your foot. I mentioned the waist was wider than I would like. To me, Chelsea boots need to be snug at the heel, the waist and the instep. Having no laces to tighten, it's this snugness all around the bend of your feet that stops the Chelsea boot from flinging off every time you take a step. Did I mention the uppers are water resistant? The injection moulded PU sole means that there shouldn't be any weak spots between the sole and the uppers to let water in. Combined with the suede having been treated and been water resistant, makes for a useful wet weather suede boot, not winter necessarily, rainy day. It does spot after having waded through a rain puddle but the marks can be easily brushed and cleaned off. And so, what to clean with? Not being a particularly thick leather, it doesn't ever feel like it needs conditioning. To be honest, it's probably been treated so much that it doesn't lose much natural oil if it has any left. One of the things I always do is look at what the manufacturer recommends for leather care. In this case, Echo make their own suede cleaning and conditioning products. They have foam cleaners, a suede and newbuck cleaning kit, eraser and brush kit, as well as suede and newbuck roll-on conditions. I'll leave some links to their cleaning and conditioning products in the description area below this video. What Echo tells you to do is to first use the suede you raised to rub off, literally rub off, any dirt and marks and use the accompanying hard brush to brush the nap and fibres to remove the loose dirt after the ground has been rubbed off. Then, they recommend using the foam cleaner to clean the suede. You pump spray the foam onto a clean cloth and rub it all over in soft circular movements and then you let it dry. If you need to, you can then use their roll-on suede and newbuck conditioner to restore color and treat the nap so that it softens again. You can buy Echo shoes in almost any shopping center anywhere in the world. As I said at the beginning, you can buy them in their branded stores and shopping centers or anywhere on the high streets and you can get them online off their own website. I would recommend that you go to a store to check your sizing. In my experience, depending on the style and last, sizing on Echo shoes and boots can vary. In this case, I'm a European 41.5 on the Brannock device and I can wear anything in Echo from a 41 to a 42. This boot is a 41 and it fits me perfectly. Most of my Echo shoes, not all, most are European 41 but I have been known to fit into Echo 41.5s and even Echo 42s, a wide variation. The fit in this size is good. I mentioned earlier about the width of the waist. If I got half a size smaller, the length I think would have been too short. Conclusion, go and try them on in store. Don't muck around. As for breaking, none. Comfortable immediately, supple, flexible, soft on the feet. Of course, the thinness of the upper's help but so does the tannery. The leather comes out already supple and flexible. These boots are extremely versatile. You can wear them with most casual outfits from rugged to smart casual. I think they fit into business casual environments very easily. I wear them with jeans, five pocket pants in brown, grey or blue. They all go with this brown. I wear them with chinos in khaki, black, grey, white and even blue. I wear them with smart pants. They team with a t-shirt or polos. They match collared button-down shirts as well as more formal button-up long sleeve shirts. I wouldn't wear them with a suit though. But a blazer or a sports coat over a button-up shirt and khaki pants, I think that'd be fine. As I say, very versatile. Okay, so now to what the value is. Gosh, value is such a subjective thing, isn't it? These cost about 300 Aussie dollars list price. They are on sale or discounted every now and then. But let me put that into context. A pair of RM Williams cost nearly 600 dollars. A pair of Blun Stuns less than 200 dollars. A pair of Red Wing Iron Rangers in Australia about 560 dollars. So price-wise, it's in the ballpark. But the RM Williams and Red Wings are pretty solid world-class, good new voted footwear. The Blunnies are fashionable but solid working boots. The Echoes are fashionable and they're comfy and they're extremely versatile. But I'm not sure you easily put their mass-produced nature into the same category as RM Williams and Iron Rangers. So what's the value? I guess it's what the value is to you. I didn't buy them at 300 dollars. I bought them on sale at less than 180 dollars. Now that was, I think, my value. I wanted a good-looking fashionable boot, affordable. I appreciated the comfort, which I knew about. And I probably would have spent up to 200 dollars, maybe 250 for them. I knew these were not going to last me forever. And I knew they were not re-soldable. I knew the leather wasn't up to the standards of Charles Stead and the like. Feeling nice it is though. I accepted those cons. If you like the fashionable design, knew that they were immediately comfortable, appreciated you could get a lot of wear out of them because they were so versatile, appreciated they were easy to care for and very attractive. Well, then maybe 300 is the right value for you. Overall, you get what you pay for. But you also pay for what you look for. So that's the Echo Vitrus II Chelsea boot. Now, keep an eye out for a video I'm going to do where, depending on where you stand, I'm going to either destroy these boots or amp them up a couple of notches. A couple of months ago, I got a free pair of R&M Williams Comfort Craftsman Chelsea boots in their Tobacco Sway. I said free, but actually I traded in Qantas Frequent Flyer points for them. And as we are in this COVID era, who knows where I ever used those points again. So yeah, I didn't spend any money. Anyway, having a pair of R&Ms in a similar color Sway from CF Stead's Tannery in England, probably the world's best producer of Sway, I decided I now had a better quality Swayed Tann-colored Chelsea boot. But what I was missing was a rugged wax-swayed Chelsea boot. So in a video I'll film later, I'm going to experiment and wax these Echo Chelsea boots, adding some burnishing and a layer of wax. You don't want to miss that. Watch me destroy or improve these boots. Click on the subscribe button below so that you're notified when I upload videos and catch that one when I put it up. Well, thanks for watching. Not the most interesting boot for boot collectors out there, but it is part of the pantheon of boots that people might buy. It's an easily enjoyable boot. If you enjoyed this video, I hope you did, please click on the like button below. It helps my channel get recognized in the YouTube universe. And that helps me. I've got plenty more boot-related videos to come, so I hope to see you soon.