 Good day. How are you going? My name is Tech and welcome to my boot review channel, Bootlossophy. I acknowledge the Wajik people who are the traditional custodians of the lands and waters that I live, work and play on. Today, I'm taking a look at another model of my still-grail boot, the White's MP boot, this time in black chrome excel. This pair of boots is part of White's lifestyle range of boots, the MP service boot. This particular model is the MP Sherman toe cap in black chrome excel. They come in two not very dissimilar styles. This MP Sherman has a two-piece backstay and the MPM one has a one-piece boondocker style backstay. Those of you who have been following me for a while know that I love my White's MP boots. They are my grail boot and so much so that these are my fourth pair. I have a pair of Cacto half-lugged MPs in natural chrome excel, a pair of MPM one boots in classic cinnamon waxed flesh and a pair of MP Sherman's in British tan chrome excel. And of course I have this pair in black chrome excel which I bought from Melbourne retailer, the Urahara store in Collinwood. I'll put links through this video to my previous reviews of the other models, they'll pop up up here. You can check out my MP sizing in last comparison video, that's the first one I'm referring to up here. Yeah, I'm crazy about White's MP boots. To me they give the perfect aesthetic of hardy work boot construction in a stylish military design. To me these are what Doc Martin wearers should aspire to in style and what casual wearers of boots should try. To me these give that strong well-booted feel. I know that Weiberg's service boot, capital S, capital B, trademark registered, were probably the kick-off in the 2000s to the current service boot trend. But to me as much as I like my Weiberg that I have these speak more of military ruggedness. I dare say that if you look at most recent models of Cacto service boots from the Thursday captain to any other recent variant they can be seen to take design cues from this boot. While they're in White's lifestyle range of boots, don't let that fool you into thinking that they're lightly built. I believe that these boots are casual boots made by a work boot maker. If you look at a pair of Weiberg's, you'll see quite clearly that they are made by a sturdy boot maker that has consciously decided to make carefully made dressier casual boots. The clicking is super refined, the stitching is excellent with incredibly precise stitching per inch. These are made as carefully but with far less a nod to fashion consciousness. The cutting, the stitching, the construction are all worthy of work boots but in a design that looks fashionable. Note that these sit in their lifestyle range with models such as their nomad engineer boots, their packers, cutters and mock-toe work boots. It's almost as if the marketing department said, oh those look like someone might wear them to a bar. So we'll go then in lifestyle boot section. Purpose first, categorization later. Now I won't go into great detail about the history of White's boots. If you want to know more, you can see one of my earlier reviews like this one up here of the Half-Lug Sherman in Natural Chromic Cell. But for those new to my channel, very quickly then, White's is one of the original Pacific Northwest brands established in the American Pacific Northwest States and famous for their histories in producing work boots for the logging industry from way back in the early 20th century. In fact, White's as a company started way back in the 1850s in the northeast United States but moved to the northwest at the turn of the century. Boots for the logging industry of the northwest became boots for wildland firefighters who would parachute in to fight wildland fires or what we in Australia would call bushfires in remote areas. The toughness of the boots and their company legacy meant that the use of White's as firefighting boots and work boots became widespread in the mid 20th century. Mid 20th century. I was alive then but it seems like a period in history. Ownership of the company has since passed from the White's family to ABC Shuma, a Japanese owned multinational footwear conglomerate. And while there have been some social media comment that since then quality has decreased, I haven't noticed it on my boots. To my mind, social media is a greasy wheel platform. If you're happy with a certain product, you are less likely to shout out your happiness. But if you feel aggrieved about something, the greasy wheel, you are more likely to punch it out in social media where you can complain without any consequence. Since this is not my first review of White's MP Boots, I won't spend too much time on styling the boot, except to say that in black, they are the tough version of what Doc Martens wish they were. So, wearing them with all black outfits, they certainly cut the stylish look. Whether it's all black button downs, chinos and sports coats, or all black chinos and turtleneck with a tan blazer, or just all black jeans and a t-shirt, they work in that almost menacing, quiet style. Why not see what another makeup of these boots could look like? Up here, my review of the MP Sherman in British tan chrome excel. As for construction, once again, I won't spend too much time on the details of the construction. I've told it all before. But let's just run through some highlights for my new viewers. And I do have a lot of new viewers, about half of my viewers are either new or unsubscribed. It sits on a day-night studded sole. Now, you might say that it's odd for a tough service boot to be on a studded sole like this, rather than some type of rugged commando sole. But this day-night is a very versatile sole. It is made by the Harbour Rubber Company in England and they've been pumping out this rubber outsole design since 1910. Versatility. On the rugged side, it's a very hardy composite of rubber with enough of a combination of shock absorption on hard surfaces and good grip on almost everything except slippery smooth paving tiles. It is durable. The studs stand proud of the surface and take some time to wear as flat as the surface. And unless you drag your heels when you walk, I found that the heel wear to be quite slow. On the sleek side of the ledger, for the durability, day-night soles are low profile. In fact, they were designed in 1910 to substitute for dressy leather soles and many dress shoes are kitted out in day-night today. From the side profile, you can't see the studs and there's a service boot. These look like parade ground shoes. You can see more detail about construction in my review of the MPM1 in cinnamon waxed flesh up here, but I'll go through some highlights. The uppers are connected to the sole construction using white's rolled welt construction. This is a weird form of stitch-down construction. Stitch-down construction is where the uppers are flared out at the bottom and then sewn onto the midsole and outsole combination. Admirers of stitch-down say that it's more water resistant, even than Goodyear welted models, because the uppers, being flared out, allow the water on the boot to sort of flow away off the boot. Detractors of stitch-down on the other hand say that it's harder to re-sole. Sure, you can pick the stitches and then re-stitch the new sole on, but you have to be really careful to stitch through the original stitch holes in the uppers if you want to replace the midsole, otherwise you end up with Swiss cheese. Okay, so that's traditional stitch-down construction. Now sometimes they add a welt so that the flared-out uppers are stitched onto a welt, and the sole construction mainly for comfort and added water barrier purposes. Now, white's rolled welt is a further derivation of stitch-down, and as far as I'm aware, no other bootmaker uses this form of construction. It's probably too hard. What they do is they flare out the uppers like normal, but then they stitch a strip of the same uppers leather on top of that flare and roll it down and flare it out as well on top of the rolled-out uppers. Then the so-called rolled welt, made of the same material as the uppers, don't forget, as well as the uppers are stitched through to the sole construction like normal. So what you see is a layer of leather that looks like the uppers, but it's not, another layer of leather which is the uppers, and then the leather that makes up the midsole and then the rubber outsole. All these layers are hand stitched together in the front half of the boot, and in the back half, the stitch continues around three-quarters of the boot, stitching the midsole to the outsole. However, the back half of the boot is attached to the insole and uppers by glue and nails. A lot of nails. Don't worry, it won't move in all the shaking of a Los Angeles earthquake or elite Kardashian sex tape. The uppers in this case are Black and Aligned Died Chromic Cell. Let's quickly unpack that. Firstly, they are Chromic Cell, which is a famous leather from the equally famous Chicago tannery Halloween leather company, another generational business that started in 1905. If you have never heard the name of any other leather, you will have heard of Chromic Cell. It was developed by Horween in the 1910s, I think primarily as a mechanical seal. Apparently, leather seals in pistons and engines were preferred to rubber, because operators could feel them start to fail rather than rubber seals which worked one minute and then blew up in the very next minute. At any rate, whatever they were primarily designed for, they have become a leather classic and today is ubiquitous. It's used in all manner of leather goods. It's used in belts, wallets, shoes, bags. Famously, it undergoes 28 days worth of processing that includes hot stuffing the hides with oils and waxes so that it finishes as the ultimate pull-up leather where you can pull up on the leather and see the oils and waxes move inside. You can't see it on the black, the black aniline dye disguises it, but you can smell it. On lighter Chromic Cell leathers, just pulling up from underneath will show the leather flex and the colour move. Which means it's quite a self-curing leather. If you scuff it and if you massage and brush Chromic Cell, the oils and waxes inside the leather will move around, self-lubricate and repair the scuff. It's also a much maligned leather in my opinion anyway. People talk about the Chromic Cell Lottery meaning that you can get a piece or product where the leather grain separates from the corium. That's the rough next to flesh layer. Now leather, as it's tanned, is made up of layers. Right on top is called the grain. That's the layer that is right on top of skin and full grain leather is uncorrected so that it shows all the hair holes, fat streaks, pores and the animal's wrinkles in various parts of its body. Under that is the corium layer, the nappy stuff you see on the reverse side which has looser fibres. Sometimes a piece of leather can see the grain layer work loose and it starts to separate from the corium layer. When this happens you see on top like a wrinkling of the surface. That's loose grain. It's not especially structurally weakening but it can be unsightly. Chromic Cell has been accused of being particularly affected by this hence the Chromic Cell Lottery. Now in some makers you almost never see this, Viberg for example. In my experience Oak Street Boot Makers as another example and so far in my experience Whites. This is less so because they won and by extension you won the Chromic Cell Lottery but it's mainly because they exercise strict clicking standards. Clicking is the process of using templates and a damn heavy stamp to cut out or click the pieces of leather that make up the pattern of the boot from the hide. This process isn't just about cutting, it's also about the experience to examine the hide, choose the areas to use and the areas to discard and to place the cutting templates in order to waste as little of the hide to the discard bin as possible. However take a step back and envision a hide stripped from a cow or steer. It will be from the neck, across the shoulders and down the sides and down to the rump of the animal. If you think of that typical hide shape you recognise that it includes the belly and bits under the armpits that saw a lot of flexing and movement in life. Guess what, those bits are likely to see a lot of loose grain because in life the animal had a lot of fat there or at least it flexed there. So careful clicking means many of those areas are avoided and discarded, hide paid for that's not used to make money. And guess what, brands that don't have a lot of loose grain, they are the more expensive brands. Lessor cheaper brands will try to use as much of the hide as they possibly can get away with including those loose grain tendency areas. Couple that with how ubiquitous chrome excel is in boots and you can work out for yourself the number of statistical instances where loose grain can appear on a boot. And hence the legend of the chrome excel lottery was born. And then on top of that people mistake good old fashioned natural creases or rolls on a boot with loose grain. When you start to walk in your pristine new boot without any creases or wrinkles it will start to find its own flex points in areas where it needs to fold. If it doesn't then you're probably wearing a wooden clog. So naturally creases and wrinkles will appear. People not used to quality leathers on quality footwear, people who are used to highly corrected and processed rubbery leather on fashion house shoes. These people will mistake this for loose grain. It is not. Loose grain looks as if the top of the leather is separating off the lower layer and will look loose, not just a crease. Here's an analogy. Look at the bend in your elbow. The lines there are bending creases. Look at where you have fat. And where your skin kind of hangs loose. Gross. But that is loose grain kind of. So that's chrome excel. Now what about this aniline dyed black colour business? Chrome excel is usually slightly corrected. The surface is lightly sanded to smooth it out. And then it's aniline dyed. There are two types of dyes. One that permeates the whole skin and aniline dyeing which is basically like a stain painted on the surface. The difference is like dyeing a piece of fabric where the dye goes straight through all the way through the fibres. As opposed to staining a piece of wood where the stain soaks through the top layer of the wood but it doesn't penetrate any further. You can tell this is aniline dyed when you look at the edges. If you look at the edges of the cut leather, you can see the black on top and the brown that runs through the depth of the leather. The exciting thing about aniline dyed chrome excel or at least the current exciting trend thing is that aniline dyed chrome excel is a T-core leather. A T-core leather is, I gather, a leather where the core of it remains the brown T-colour and it's only the surface that's coloured. Now why is this exciting? At the moment there is a trend toward rugged fashion. What's more rugged in boots than to wear them so that they patina like rugged footwear. That they scuff and as they wear and scuff and patina, part of that patina is the T-core showing through. Rugged. Yeah, I know. We are a sad bunch. Okay, so that's it. Let me talk quickly about sizing. The standard white MP boot come in the MP or modified berry last. I find this last long and cigar shaped and my formula for this is to go a full size down from your true Brannock size but one width up. So my Brannock size is a US 8.5 in D width. While this pair is an 8 in D width and it does fit me, don't get me wrong. I think a better fit would have been a 7 in E or even double E width. But if in doubt, going a half down in your regular width won't see you wrong. And for the person who told me that not many people have a Brannock size and I should give advice against sneaker size. Oh dear God, which sneaker are you referring to? Each sneaker brand uses different lasts and number their sizes. All kinds of stupid numbers. Stop it. There's a shoe store near you. Go there. Go get measured properly. And if you live in the middle of the Tenamai Desert, can't get to a store, you can download a Brannock measuring template. Honestly, stop it. Now, let's talk quickly about comfort. Here's where you reap the benefit of white's experience in making comfortable work boots that you can work in and stand in all day. Because these are tough, supportive and very comfortable. What makes the comfort? Firstly, the all leather construction. I'm talking about the leather insole, the leather midsole, the leather built into the arch of the foot, the leather shank. This natural thick moulded and carved leather construction means that not only does the boot wrap itself around your feet, but that it adapts, it shapes itself with where to the exact shape of the underneath of your feet in order to be fully supportive. Second, I have found the uppers to be fully supportive around the ankle. I've worn this in the top end of Australia and while it can be hot there, especially during the humid wet season, it's been totally supportive around the ankle and above when I've struggled through sand and really gravely rocks and cliff faces. You never feel like you're putting a foot wrong wherever you walk. Overall the last, subject to maybe that cigar shape that I talked about, it's also a comfortable last, albeit on my feet, the heel cup can be a little too generous, but the way the generous tongue helps to wrap the shaft and instep around my foot, I think it can get away with it. The last is modified from the berry last, that's the same last used by Alden in lasting their indy boot. So it's no surprise that apart from what's underfoot, the shape of the uppers, especially tucked in around and under your arch, provides excellent arch support. I can and I have worn these boots, checking through wet, boggy outback terrain and through rocks and gravel gullies and river gorges and stood up in front of business meetings for 10 to 12 hours a day and never felt the need to take them off. I am totally sold in the comfort of these boots. I guess there's only one potential downside to these boots. They cost 700 US dollars, let's get it out there. I bought these from the Urahara store in Melbourne for 922 Australian dollars. Now, 900 bucks can buy you a lot of stuff. 125 Big Macs. Nearly two weeks average rent on an average house in Perth. One and a half pairs of red wing iron ranges. Let's face it, you have to have enough money to afford these. But once you splash the cash, is it worth it? To me, yeah, it is. Because not only do you get this sturdy, hardy, tough, rugged quality construction, everything I've spoken about before, not only do you get the all leather construction in the soul inside and out, in the heel counter and the shank, not only do you get the comfort of a tough work boot, but you also get the style. This is a boot you can wear doing manual work. And this is a boot you can fantasize about military deeds in. And this is a boot you can wear in an office and in any kind of social casual and reasonably casual business casual situations. It is versatile. This is a boot that if you can only afford one boot, would see you through 90% of whatever your situation is. Okay, you can't go jogging in it, and you probably shouldn't wear it with your tuxedo. But that's about it. Leave aside that it is my grail boot that for whatever reason it speaks to me in those hushed so-called manly tones of masculine bootness, it is an attractive boot. It is a versatile boot. It is a sturdy boot. Let's say you wear it hard as your only boot. Unless you're actually out there fighting forest fires, white boots have been known to last 20 years. So on an annual basis, that's 45 Australian dollars a year. By any other pair of boots as your sole boot, you're likely to be spending on a new boot every five years or so, if not less. And that means 70 or more Aussie dollars a year. That sounds like value to me. So there you go. Again, another knockout conclusion to another review of white MP boots. Am I biased? Of course I am, but I've laid out what I see as the facts before you and you can make up your own mind. I love them. I think if you like Americana heritage boots, service boots in particular, you're going to love them too. And if you are into Americana heritage and other quality boots, then click on the like down below and click on subscribe so that you can go with me and explore more of these kinds of boots. Hey, at the very least we can have a laugh together. Stay tuned. Until then, take care and I'll see you soon.