 Hi there, welcome to my channel Boot Lossophy, which is all about boots. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tech, and for those of you who do know me, welcome back. Today I'm taking a look at the Parkhurst Allen Boot in Dark Roast Hore Wien's Dublin Leather after seven or eight months' worth of wear. This is Parkhurst's plain-toe service boot style called the Allen Boot. The Allen is one of Parkhurst's flagship styles, along with the Richmond Captoe Boot. It's been made in a variety of smooth and suede or matte leathers before, and I have uploaded a few videos before which I'll put up here, and I'll put links in the description below. I have unboxed the Colour 8 Dublin, and I reviewed the Spruce Kudu version that you can watch as well. But this version is in Hore Wien Tannery's Dublin Leather in a colour called Dark Roast. Many of today's bootmakers who make heritage style boots do aim at that service boot aesthetic, so-called because they hark back to the military style boots from the Second World War. Generally plain-toed, derby style lacing system, six-inch height, and a sleek profile so that the boot can double as a dressier boot, yet it's built sturdily enough to use as a work boot if you want to. To find the companies that started in the 2010s, like Thursday, Oak Street Bootmakers, Grant Stone, Mark Albert, Parkhurst, all have a flagship version of this style. They differ from the bulbous-toed work boot styles, whether plain-toes or captoes, like Red Wings, Iron Rangers and Blacksmiths, or the very overtly military styles like Dot Martins. I think you'll agree with me that the shape and profile of this style is very versatile. Now full disclosure, these were factory seconds. They were discounted because the leather had some loose grain on the vamp, and here on this quarter. This boot is seven or eight months old, worn regularly, but not frequently. And to be honest now, I really don't see the extra wrinkles. I see them as part of the wear and really the patina that I look for in boots like these. The Allen Boot is made by Parkhurst Brand. Parkhurst is a small company started in 2018 by founder Andrew Savisco, who was driven to make good quality American heritage style boots with updated aesthetics at an affordable price. Andrew was also motivated by the general decline of US manufacturing of quality boots, potentially losing generations of bootmaking experience and potentially devastating towns that once had great histories in bootmaking. As a small company, Andrew partners with an existing bootmaking factory in Upstate New York, but he's really a one-man ban. As a small company, Parkhurst is a small batch manufacturer. This means that he buys smaller batches of hides and makes a smaller batch of boots, and when that batch and type of leather runs out, he'll try another leather. This makes Parkhurst both frustrating and exciting. It's frustrating because you might see a model you like, but if you're too slow, you may find that it's run out because they are very popular and there's a wait to get the leather again or it may never be made in that leather again ever. It's exciting because of the innovative choice of leathers that Andrew will try and it's exciting to hunt for that different special boot. Subscribe into that and you'll find a great community on Facebook called the Parkhurst Enthusiast Group, which celebrates as people race to buy the boots when they drop or celebrate when members and find old versions on the secondary market. I'll put a link to the Parkhurst Enthusiast Group in the description below. Parkhurst have a few different styles, but lately they have concentrated on the plain-toe Allen and the cap-toe Richmond Boot. They've used Horween's Chrome XL, Dublin and other leathers, as well as CF Stead Swades and their exotic hides like Kudu and Moose, as well as Seidel's Double Shot and Waxflesh and other leathers. It's been described as a service boot adventure. Let's move on to look at how the boot is constructed. I'll start from the bottom up. This boot has a day-night rubber sole and heel top lift. Day-night is a brand of the English Harborough Rubber Company, which invented the day-night sole in 1910, so it's not new. The company was locally known to run their mills day and night and so the new sole was branded as Day-night, get it? Day-night is a very popular sole used by a lot of bootmakers because of the combination of sleepiness and grip. As you can see it's pretty flat when you view it from the side. So you can see that this could be used for smart shoes or for boots that are designed to be versatile as a casual or dress boot. At the same time it has these studs which provide the grip. The low-profile studs don't pick up dirt like the deep commando lug sole so you can go back to allowing shoes and boots with day-night soles to look dressy. You can visit your spouse's parents without them cursing that you've dragged in mud onto your carpet with your with your boots. I've worn them in my urban style life so concrete, rain of shine, grass, carpeted floors, pub floors, slippery shopping centre floors. I haven't slipped yet. The outsole is connected to the uppers using a 360 degree Goodyear welt construction. Let's just unpack that for a minute. For those of you who know what Goodyear welt construction is, forgive me, but there may be others who are new to quality boots and don't yet know. Now Goodyear welt construction is one way of attaching the uppers of the boot to the sole construction. In this case it's 360 degrees because the Goodyear welt stitch goes all the way around 360 degrees around. In some cases, check out Alden Indies or Red Wing Iron Ranges, they're 270 degrees, that is the stitching goes three quarters of the way around from here to here. The Goodyear welt construction takes a welt, a thin strip of leather mostly and sows it to the turned-in bottoms of the uppers leather. The outside edge of the welt, which is exposed here, is then stitched through the midsole and outsole, thus connecting the sole to the uppers. One way of telling, although there are faux stitches out there, is to look for the stitching on the outside edge of the welt here and around the outsole here. In this case there are further variations to the basic Goodyear welt. I'm not sure the camera can pick this up, but here on top of the outside edge of the welt you can feel ridges along the length. This is called a wheeled welt, meaning a wheel is run over the leather welt creating this ridged effect. Also, as you can see here, the welt seems to be turned up against the outside of the boot. This is called a split reverse Goodyear welt. The inside half of the welt is split, the bottom part of that split is sewn to the uppers as usual, while the upper part is flanged out and pushed against the uppers, as you can see. This reinforces one of the advantages of Goodyear welt at construction boots. It's touted as being very water resistant because there is a welt between the sole outside and the innards of the boot as a barrier. As you can see, having a flange here should make it even more water resistant. The other stated advantage of the Goodyear welt is that it makes the boot re-solable. If you had a fashion shoe with a semantic construction, the sole is glued to the uppers and when your sole runs thin or runs out or wears out, you can't really peel it off and glue another sole on without damaging the uppers. In this case you can cut through the stitching here and peel off the rubber outsole and glue and stitch another one on without doing any damage to the midsole or to the uppers. On this boot the midsole is leather that's here between the rubber layer and the welt and you can see the heel block is real leather. On some bootmakers' constructions the midsole may be rubber or another man made material and the heel block could be something like wood with a leather veneer. Moving into the invisible inside of the boot, if you think about it, if you have a piece of leather going all the way around the edge of the sole, you'll create a little cavity inside, right? This is filled with cork and embedded into the cork just here inside the boot is a fiberglass shank. A shank is a strip of hard material, usually steel, that bridges this gap between the heel and the ball of the foot. It gives you a rigidity in that area so it gives you arch support and torsion stability. In this case it's fiberglass which Andrew has chosen because he believes it has advantages over steel, being sturdy, long lasting, helps easier break-in and doesn't rust, flake or crack. I don't know but it certainly doesn't set off airport security. I travel a lot for my work before Covid at least twice a month and my park herds are my preferred travel boots. Inside the boot is a leather insole and on top of the heel area another leather heel base. All of these leather pieces in the sole construction are veg tanned American leather. Now this is real leather cork and rubber combination and this combination makes for a sturdy and firm yet comfortable boot because it breathes, it wicks moisture and it compresses to the shape of your feet making the more and more comfortable the more you wear them. The inside of the boot at the vamp is lined with more veg tanned leather and it's reputed to be heavier that means thicker leather than most other boots. In fact in many heritage boots at this price or even up to $200 more they don't use a leather lining instead they use canvas or some other synthetic cloth material. The inside of the shaft is not lined it has that nappy feel of the flesh side of leather. Some people like that because it's more supple without a full leather lining and they say it breathes better. My preference is to have a full leather lining like in grandstone boots. I don't really feel that it's any hotter and an unlined shaft tends to grab at my socks as I push my feet in. The first few minutes of walking around my socks are pushing my toes up like a foot version of a wedgie. The shape of the toe and the stability of the heel are kept by using a salastic heel counter and a salastic structured toe. Salastic is a synthetic thermoplastic sheet that you can shape when heated and they use it to form a thin extra layer at the toe and at the heel to give it shape. The heel counter is covered by a one-piece backstay that cups the heel counter and extends up the back to the shaft. You find the Parker's Allen boot has variations sometimes in some models it has this one-piece makeup in others two pieces the piece that that cups the heel and a strip that goes up the shaft. It's a six inch shaft and the collar is reinforced with another strip of leather on the inside. Stitching itself is single double and triple stitching depending on need. For example the reinforcing strips at the collar and the one that protects the hardware on the inside is single stitched. The backstay is double stitched and the quarters which do need some strength is triple stitched here. The hardware is eight brass eyelets no speed hooks. Again Allen's may come with all eyelets or changed up with five eyelets and three speed hooks. The tongue is semi-gusseted up to the fourth eyelet. I guess it'll help with water resistivity. Certainly holds a tongue in place and helps to avoid tongue slip where the tongue slips to one side as you wear the boot over the course of the day. The upper is as I mentioned from Horween tannery in Chicago. They make the famous chrome excel combination tanned leather. This is their Dublin leather. Dublin is a veg tan vegetable tanned leather. No chromium salts uses tenons from from vegetable materials and it's tanned with a lot of natural waxes. As a veg tan leather it's tough and stuffed with waxes the color is deep yet shows the leather's natural grain. It's a pull-up leather but not as much as chrome excel. Here you can see the shade of color I hope vary as I pull on the leather from underneath. In this dark roast version you can see the underlying grain which I love. Now remember these are factory seconds and supposedly have too much creasing here and here at the quarter. Just here. But really if you think this is a regularly worn boot which it is and it's a veg tanned leather would you really notice and I tell you it smells incredible even what seven or eight months later. It feels supple, it's waxy and it has a terrific feel under the hand just like real full grain leather should and it has a it's patinaed in beautiful ways in my opinion. So that takes us to leather care. With most Halloween smooth leathers all you need is to brush them regularly. If they get dirty wipe them with a damp cloth and then let them air dry and then brush them a lot. Brushing with a horse hair brush with the fine horse hair filaments will warm the leather and move the waxes and the leather around. Some people say to condition them as soon as you get them which I used to do because they say the leather could have sat around for a while and the finished boot may have been in a box for a while but I've become wary of over conditioning boots. Also they have to have been stored in some very dry air desert warehouse for a long time for these rich oils and waxes in the tannage to dry out. When you do have to condition them when the leather starts to feel dry and less waxy to the touch I don't think you can go wrong with Venetian shoe cream. Just apply a couple of thin coats allowing to dry in between and then, guess what, brush brush brush. I don't advise shining with a cream or a wax polish. This is not a shiny dress shoe leather. It will mark and scuff. It will shift in color variations. It will patina with use and age. Love those changes. I'll leave a couple of links to the care products below in the description area. Okay now to sizing. Parkhurst are a direct-to-consumer company which means you can only buy off their website. To many this is off-putting because you can't try them on for size. Okay so let's try to help you out. Since this is an American boot I'll talk about my US sizing. Bear in mind UK or Australian sizes are one number down from US numbers that is a US size 8 is an Australian size 7. The first thing is to know your true size or brand size. The brand device is the aluminium machine that you stand on at the shoe store. My true brand size is a US 8.5 and I'm a medium or a D width. Like many US bootmakers Parkhurst says to go half down so these are US 8D and are a perfect fit for me. Andrew designed his own last. That's the foot shape mold that the factory builds your boot around. Pulls the leather around the last to make the boot this shape. This is the Parkhurst 602 last. The 602 last is built snug around the heel and the waist and opens up with the ball of the foot and then curves around the toes in a round shape rather than in a sharp almond shape. I feel no pinching or squeeze in us anywhere. If you're at all concerned about the sizing contact Andrew especially as Parkhurst doesn't offer wide fits no E or E fits. If you have a wider than average foot ask Andrew as you may have to size up. Because the last is great for me and because this leather is so supple and also because the leather cork leather construction is not particularly hard to bend I had zero break in. As for the comfort factor it's totally comfortable to wear for the whole day. For my feet though the arch support is okay but I would prefer a little more under the arch itself. You can request the arches to be built up inside in your order so if you think you need it talk to Andrew. In my case I bought myself some stick on arch support wedges from the pharmacist and that works fine. These are casual boots while they're versatile and do look quite sleek both in profile and from the top. I think they go dressy as far only as smart or business casual. The dark roast leather is aniline dyed so the color shows a lot of the natural grain through so they don't go with a suit and probably not even with smart wool pants. I have worn them business casual with chinos and a button-up shirt and a blazer. I've also worn them as smart casual in dark or black jeans with smart button-up shirts and a bomber jacket or a herrington jacket or a rough textured sports coat or even just with a jumper. They also definitely go with denim jeans of any style but I think slim fit is better than wide or relaxed fit. I'd also probably stay away from light wash denim really faded denim because they are a dark brown but I fully expect that once they get way more patina and scuffing t-shirts would be great. Let's take a look at the value. I bought these factory seconds for 268 US dollars. They were on the website for 338 dollars so at the mid 300s what would you compare them with? Redwing, they have quite a different aesthetic but quality wise they compare well in my opinion. Some versions of the Wolverine 1000 mile boots. Again construction quality is similar. Grant Stone again compares well. Grant Stone are probably better value for money but that's against a lot of better brands even so Grant Stone is probably a bit of an outlier. Personally I think Parkhurst especially with the more adventurous and hard to find leathers you'd have to go to look at a Viberg or a Truman to get some of the Kudu, Rambler, Moose, Waxwades, the Viberg service boots and this type of leather. Personally I think Parkhurst offer really good bang for buck at the mid 300 dollar range. With over 50 pairs of boots in my collection my favorites it's a bit like picking your favorite child are becoming Parkhurst and Grant Stone for different reasons. Parkhurst QC is great. Andrew personally checks every boot out of the factory and if there are any problems he deals with them for you very very quickly. To me the combination of innovation Andrew's passionate drive the leathers they're made in the quality and fit and design they all add up to good value. I would keep buying them at this price. There you go guys I hope you like my review of these Parkhurst Allen boots in dark roast Dublin. Remember they are factory seconds. If you like my review do me a favor click on the like button below to tell YouTube that people watch this stuff and help me grow my channel and if you haven't already please click on the subscribe button. I have a load more boot reviews to bring to you so if you subscribe YouTube will send you notifications when I upload so that you don't miss a thing. Go on, take care and I'll see you soon.