 G'day. Welcome to Bootlosophy. If you haven't been here before, my name is Tech. I acknowledge the tradition custodians of the lands that I live and work on in Perth here in Western Australia, the Wajik people of the Nungar Nation. Today I'm doing an unboxing. I've been waiting for these boots a very long time. They're Chelsea boots coming in from Los Angeles, Christian Daniel boots. Let's take a look. So these took quite a while to come to me. They got stuck into a postal delivery centre in Perth coming over from overseas. They got stuck for over a week and I had to put an inquiry and make a complaint before they somebody actually sort of forwarded them to my address. But they're here now. Box from Christian Daniel. Let me just put this knife away. It's a really nice box. Let me try and get it out without actually showing you the boots first. So Christian Daniel box. Nice and fresh. Nice gold on black. Let's see what they look like. Oh that's very nice. From San Diego US. Welcome to the Christian Daniel family. This pair of boots was specially handmade for you by our artisans hands with over 30 years of experience using the best materials and not bad reading it upside down. We hope that you wear these boots with pride and create your own story while connecting with the world around you Christian Daniel. Isn't that fantastic? San Diego US which is where Christian Daniel is based. I don't know if you can see that Leon Mexico where they're actually made. So lovely tissue paper covering boots in the in their boot bags. Nicely badge CD tissue papers. There's a card as an initial supporter of our Kickstarter campaign. We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Turning this vision into a reality would not be possible without your support. Really nice. Christian Daniel is a new boot maker started by Christian Ramos. I think Daniel is his middle name as it is his father's name. So using the name Christian Daniel is a real family connection. So not only do they come in tissue paper not only do they come in a boot bag. They're also wrapped in plastic. I've never seen this before. Gosh this is careful handling. Now they come from the plastic. That's absolutely lovely packaging. They smell gorgeous really. The toe shape is quite round which I like in a Chelsea boot. It means it's really comfortable. A leather pull strap at the back. From the pictures I thought this was textile but it's not. Inside I'm not sure if you can see there's a Christian Daniel badge. Doctor Soul half souls and a Doctor Soul block heel and a lovely black leather. They also do this in a maple tan color which is lovely. That comes with a I think a Doctor Soul day night style soul. I don't have too many of these. I think I only have one pair of boots with this Doctor Soul half soul supergroup. So I wanted these these souls and so I chose the ones in black but you know that's a really nice nicely friend welted boot. So let's take a look at the other one. I have the boot bag. Take the plastic off. Gosh this is so well packaged isn't it. No damage in the mail here and it smells wonderful. So just show you these. So in profile it's a really lovely shape. That last is a combination of sleek and rounded and roomy. So that's a really interesting last I think. I'll tell you a bit more about Christian Daniel a bit later but I've waited quite a while for these boots. I think the Kickstarter campaign started in mid 2022 and they did have quite a lot of issues regarding supply chains. The Doctor Soul souls coming from China. I'm not sure if it's Taiwan or China. The Republic got held up. So the whole process got held up. The uppers were done. The bottoming was done but they couldn't put the souls on. And finally it's arrived and it actually looks good. It feels good. The leather looks brilliant. I'm going to put them on my feet and we'll take a look. Okay so this is the Fernando boot from Christian Daniel Boots. I have worn them last night. Went for a little walk but I thought I'd do a try on here just so you can see them on foot. So they they slipped in very easily the Chelsea boots quite snug. The last is a combination of slim and roomy. It's quite wide at the ball of the foot and around the toe but this snug across the instep which means the ball of the foot is wide feels slim and snug to me. I have a sort of a bone here at the ball that sticks out on most boots and I can feel it in this one. This will need a bit of stretch when I'm breaking in. I mean this doesn't feel like it needs a lot of break in but this is definitely a sort of sore point here when I'm walking around too much and that's the part that needs to be stretched during break in. The sole in terms of its flexibility feels really quite good. It's not a sort of solid stiff sole like you're walking on wood until you break it in. The heel is quite a chunky solid heel. It's wide. It's quite a wide heel. It's not sort of tapered or anything and I do find that when I'm walking look you can see you can see that the heel to ball of foot is very in a very straight line but I do feel when I'm walking there's a bit of a clunk as opposed to a roll and that might just be the breaking in. I find some boots do that. Some boots you sort of roll as you walk and in other boots like these and a few others I found is you tend to have a clunk as you walking. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that right. This one is named the Fernando. I understand after a friend of Christians who passed away but really had a life-changing impact on him so it's really nice that he remembers his father's name in his own middle name in Christian Daniel and it's very nice that he remembers people who mean a lot to him. It's made in León, Mexico although Christian Daniel is based in San Diego in California US but these are made in León in Mexico. The leather I believe comes from La Fargue tannery which is the same tannery that Thursday boots use and in fact when you have a really close look at this leather it looks shiny in this light but it's very similar to Thursday's matte black diplomat leather which isn't really matte it's more of a sort of sheen not shiny just a little bit of a sheen. The leather smells like Thursdays as well so definitely from La Fargue. Very soft very supple that's why I think it doesn't really need a lot of breaking in. The last in terms of fit and feel I think is a little generous for me in the heel. I have skinny heels and skinny ankles so in Chelsea boots in particular I do need them to grip me around the back. I think these will be fine because the instep and the actual shaft holds my foot in but I do feel and maybe it will alleviate a little bit once the leather midsole really breaks and flexes. It should alleviate the bit of heel slip that I feel now as I'm walking along. I don't feel I don't feel like they're about to fall off they're not that loose but there was just a little bit of heel lift as I'm flexing my foot you know that flex point at the ball of the foot isn't really flexing just yet despite the fact that I said earlier that it's not a stiff midsole. Alright so I might take a closer look at the boots now. Okay so let's take a closer look at the the boot design and makeup and construction. I won't go through the whole construction I'll wait until I do my sort of full review in about three months time and we can go into the construction then I'll have a bit more time to research how it's done and talk to Christian about about the construction but as you can clearly see it's a Chelsea boot characterized by no laces and the two goring panels on either side a pull-up leather pull-up tab in the back which is very useful because it's the shaft is nice and nice and tight around your ankle. In terms of construction it has three leather pieces the vamp which is one piece up to there I'm there and then two pieces that make up the the back third of the boot that's sort of joint there and then there. It's a Goodyear welt and it's a it's a proper storm welt. By that I mean that this welt if you cut across section has a sort of flat bit a lump and a flat bit and the lump is what you see coming up here against the side of the boot as opposed to a split reverse welt whether the welt is split and then it sort of pushed up against the boot. Outside of the welt sewn through to the sole to the outsole through the midsole and the outsole and the inside of the boot sewn to the to the insole. So water resistant, easier to re-sew. The leather as I said is from Le Farc tannery and you can see I know there's a bit of shine because of the overhead lighting but it's really a sheen it's a sort of matte black as defined by Thursday. I really like this leather it's soft it's supple it has rolled and it has started to crease I walked about oh I would have said probably about a mile last night in these just to see how they felt on the foot and they have started to roll as you can see but there's no sort of major creasing and there's no sort of loosening of the grain on top. It is full grain I can see hair holes bit of fat streaks, musculature that sort of thing on it. The sole construction apart from this natural colored welt there's a natural colored leather midsole so that's fantastic leather heel stack and then this half Dr. Soul super grip half sole which is sewn on and then tacked the brass tacks and a Dr. Soul heel topper as well quite a quite a thick chunky one as you can see. Construction wise I think it's been put together really well. I've seen pictures of how they've been put together in the Instagram post that Christian puts on when he was making them. What they do is and this often happens with quality boots they wrap the boot in cling wrap plastic wrap then they do the bits they need to do on the sole and sand and stitch and so on and then they pull the cling wrap off. A little bit of cling wrap was still caught up in it and I just picked it up with a with a toothpick basically pull it out I don't have a problem with that. The stitching all looks pretty good I think there might be maybe one or two like okay slightly missed stitches in the in the welt maybe this one is a little bit more parrot again you know what the hell it's a it's a hand-lasted handmade boot right yeah I guess QC is not the best not 100% and you know like if you look at the welt there is a there is a definite welt joint it's not sort of perfect but you know if you're picky you'll see it but if you're not you won't you if you look at the boot globally let me take a step back look at the boot globally oh gosh that is a beautiful boot so you know it's a bit churlish to talk about the welts not meeting perfectly I think this is not a dress boot you wear this on any casual occasion you kick around in it and so on so I'm not particularly fast about that construction wise structural wise I think it's really good it's very difficult to secure the goreing on a Chelsea boot without it feeling like it might start to come loose this has been done well there's been enough of a stitching through it it's leather lined fully leather lined on the inside so it makes it nice and soft and comfortable there is a badge I don't know if you can see Christian Daniel there can you see that Christian Daniel there is a bad leather sock liner half liner that comes up to the ball of the foot just under the arch arch support in these I find pretty good it's quite comfortable I think partly because despite these the width of this area in the and the waist here and the in the sole if you look at this part here it does tuck in and then come out and I think the leather itself forms a bit of a support for your arch apart from of course the steel shank that's in there cork foot bed so it feels comfortable with moldy feet so QC wise not precise but it's good it's not going to fall apart you know and yeah I really like the design of it I think the construction is really good the materials feel good to me they're good enough for lots of other bootmakers and Lafac is a is a really well known certified tenry so you know don't look down the fact that it's in Mexico you know I like it so just before we finish and I'm when I do the full review you'll get the full history a lot of research it properly but Christian Daniel was started by Christian Daniel Ramos in I think 2020 he started off by making a few prototype models both of Chelsea boots and of lace up boots it didn't get until the middle of 2022 when he started his Kickstarter campaign to produce the Fernando and he produced two models during the Kickstarter campaign this one in black from the far tenry with a dr. soul half soul and another one in a tan color which I think is called maple and that one has I believe a dr. soul started day night like soul I've had plenty of day night and at the time I only had one pair of boots with this dr. soul so I chose this one really to get the feel of that soul I'm not I'm not you know particularly for the black boots they're not one of my favorites but I do like black boots they do have a role in in outfits and what I wear and for casual outfits and particularly now as I'm in gray and you can't see my jeans but the black these go really well Christian Daniel Ramos himself I think had a difficult early life with some addictions that he alludes to and has publicly talked about in some of his interviews and in some of his postings but what I really admire about him is he pulled through he decided what his wife was at what his life was worth and he decided to make something off that worth and you know that I'm a big supporter of small boot brands the red wings of the world the Ellen Edmonds the Aldons they will survive these guys need our support they built boots not as a business but with a passion and I think people like Christian deserve our support of boot lovers you know not not just it would be nice to they deserve it because they are the tradition of bootmaking and so I fully support it the Kickstarter campaign started in July 2022 and closed in August 2022 and this cost me 360 US dollars to pledge for not quite sure what they'll go for when they he starts releasing them but that's a fair price you know it's it's a well-made boot it's got good material it's a great last I'm gonna have to break this little little bit in where the bone on the ball my foot sticks into it and it's a little bit cramped but otherwise it's a great last it's it's tight on the instep tight on the shaft so it keeps the fit on the Chelsea very hard to do unfortunately after his Kickstarter campaign closed Christian had a lot of problems with his supply chain coming out of Dr. Sol in I think Dr. Sol's based in the Republic of China which is Taiwan but still recovering from COVID issues and COVID shipping he got these souls late so they were produced late and they've only just come out now the Maple I think started shipping last month and the black started shipping this month and this is one of the first ones highly recommend this brand I think there will be a lace-up model coming out soon so have a look at that go get across to his website I put a link in the description below not an affiliate I'm just a supporter go take a look and of course let us not forget while you're here if you like this video click on the like button and please click on the subscribe button because then I'll be able to bring you through the reminders on YouTube other boot reviews and other boot things so until then take care and I'll see you soon