 G'day, how are you going? My name is Tech and welcome to my channel Boot Lossophy. I'm working in Wajik Country, Nungabuja in Western Australia, and I recognise the traditional custodians of this land. This is the Owen Boot, a mockto from Huckaberry's house brand, Rhodes Boots. This is the Rhodes Owen Boot, Rhodes being the brand and Owen being the name of the boot. Okay, I know what you're thinking. This looks suspiciously like the Olden Indie, just like the one I've already reviewed and you can catch that review up here. I'd rather call it an homage rather than a straight-up copy because there are some differences other than the difference between a US$265 boot and the Olden Quality US$600 boot. You'll see when I talk about the construction. To be fair, I'm going to stop comparing these to the Olden Indie from now on and I'll just review these boots as they come so you can make up your own minds. Later I might do a video making a point-by-point comparison if you think that's a good idea. Let me know in the comments below. One thing though, there's not a lot of information available about the Rhodes Owen, so a lot of what I include in here will be from what I can actually see rather than from any research into the boot. So let's start with these being a mockto. A mockto is an abbreviation of moccasin toe and is named after First Nations American moccasin shoes. You can see the similarity of the U-shaped stitching in the toes here. This is actually a mock-mockto. In a real mockto, the stitching here actually shows together two pieces of leather, the top of the vamp and the side walls of the toe box. You can check out my review of the classic Tharigood 6-inch mockto work boots up here to check out the difference. In this case, the stitching here just pucks up the leather, but it's one piece of leather that makes up the whole vamp and toe box. It has a sleek design that comes from sort of mid-20th century 6-inch work boots before Gore-Tex padded waterproofing materials and composite toe protection took over technical work boots. It's actually looking very sleek, still looks sturdy, and it certainly looks like it could be brushed up and taken out for a drink after work. I'll go into more detail later when I talk about construction, but it's a 6-inch boot, meaning it measures about 6 inches from the heel to the top of the shaft. It's good-y-weltered onto a Vibram mini lug sole, and it is fully lined. When it's available, it comes in two colors. This one is Amorello, and another one is Espresso in a much more darker coffee brown, both of them in this smooth leather. It's lasted on a comfortably wide last. A last is the foot-shaped mould that the bootmaker stretches the uppers around, forming the shape of the boot, and then sewing the insole on before removing it from the last and completing the construction. Clearly, it's the design of the last that makes the design of the boot, and all the difference of the last makes. Say an iron ranger with its bulbous toe looks different from this with its sleek toe. This one is a comfortably wide last. The heel and waist are quite snug, enough room in the instep, and it widens out of the ball of the foot before it rounds into a round almond-shaped toe. Visually, when you look down, it looks huge on your feet because it is very wide-weld. The Owen boot is from Rhodes brand, which in turn is a house brand of Huckbury, a men's online store selling rugged and outdoorsy clothing, as well as other manly gear like camping stuff, bar wear, and so on. Through the Rhodes brand, they also make roper boots, chuckers, pretty rugged Chelsea boots, and a couple of other interesting six-inch boot designs. They also sell other boots from brands like Oak Street Bootmakers, Danors, Redwing, Weitz and Weiberg. With Weitz and Weiberg, I think they run exclusive collabs with them. The Rhodes brand at Boots are made in Leon, Mexico, which I'm reliably informed is the leather capital of Mexico. Thursday boots are made there as well. Now this is where it's going to get a little sketchy because I'm going to talk about the construction based on what I can see because there's not a lot of information about how these boots are made. Looking at the article on the website, I can see that it's made in a family-run factory in Leon, and the leather is sold from the Lafargue tannery just down the road. Lafargue is also where Thursday boots get their leathers from. Let's do the usual and work our way from the bottom up. So the outsole is a rubber Vibram mini lug sole. Vibram is an Italian sole manufacturer founded by an Italian mountain climber called Vittali Bramani in 1935. Vittali Bramani, Vibram, get it? The story is that several of his friends died in a mountain climbing accident, and he maintained that they would not have died if they had proper climbing boots, and so he invented the commando lug sole that's an extremely popular rugged outsole design to this day. This is a short lugged or mini lug version of that pattern. The design of the lugs is there, radiating lugs up on the outside of the pattern and cross-shaped lugs in the middle. These are shallow, whereas you can get commando lug soles that are made very deep. The rubber sole goes the full length of the boot, and then at the heels a leather stack is put on the top, and then a commando lugged heel top lift is finally topping it to provide grip and rubber shock absorption. Although the rubber is pretty firm, looking at the leather heel stack, I can't tell if it's actually leather or leather composite to save some cost. I can see grain, but I'm not clear if it's the grain of a full leather stack or the grain of reconstituted leather composite. Basically, a leather composite is pieces of leather all mashed up and then remade into sheets. Think of MDA for composite timber fireboard. Above the outsole, that's about five mils thick itself. I can see a three mil thick rubber midsole. I can then see what looks like a storm welt. That's about two or three mils thick. A welt is a thin strip of narrow leather that goes around the edge of the boot. In the Goodyear welt method of construction, the uppers are turned inwards and then sewn to the inside edge of the welt on the inside. The mid and outsole are glued together and then sewn onto the outside edge of the welt. This method means that the uppers are not sewn directly to the outsole, thus allowing the welt to be a sort of barrier against outside moisture getting inside the boot. A different method of construction is Blake stitching, where the outsole is sewn directly through and onto the uppers. And you can see then that any stitch holes underneath the outsole goes directly inside the boot, a route for moisture to seep in. Goodyear welting also means, theoretically, that it's easier to re-seal or re-craft. You just undo the stitches of the outsole, peel it off, put on a new outsole and re-stitch it to the welt and you don't disturb and potentially don't ruin the uppers. In this case, I think it's technically a storm welt. I think the upper flap is actually a wider welt with the inside edge bent over in itself, forming the flange. The fold inside, double thickness, is what gets sewn to the uppers. The flange that you see then is actually the edge of the wider welt that's doubled over. I'm told this can be recognized because if you look at the top edge of the flange, you kind of see it as a finished edge rather than a raw leather edge. And that's what makes it a storm welt, supposedly. There are variations upon variations of making this flange thing. So take my observations with a pinch of salt. Inside the boot, there's a cavity in the footbed caused by the welt going around the outside edge. Classically, this is filled with cork and then classically, there's a leather insole covering it and which your feet actually stand in. In this case, I think the cavity filling is a kind of foam. Or if there is cork, then there's an additional layer of foam because I can feel an elastic give when I press down. It accepts the pressure and then bounces back. It may not be heritage style materials, but I like it. It's very comfortable. It is finished off with a leather insole footbed. Moving into the uppers, the toe box has some structure. I think from feeling the give, it's something like solastic. It's a thermoplastic that can be moulded when warmed to shape into toe boxes and heel cups. Having this stiffener at the toes means that it keeps its shape. The same material is in the heel. It's there also to keep its shape, but also having a shaped and supported heel means that it locks your feet in for a more comfortable fitting. On the inside, it's fully lined with a really soft leather lining with a small patch of suede at the heel to grip your soft heel and avoid heel slip. The tongue's also lined, but not gusseted. There is a stiffening stitch halfway up the tongue. And I think this and the liner makes the tongue stay where it is and not slide to one side or the other despite being ungusseted. The number of panels used is attractive enough. Two quarters, one piece backstay, the vamp, the pull tab. The stitching's okay. A little fraying at the pull tab and the Goodyear welt stitching is showing somewhere, both above the welt and under the sole. A little alarming, but there should be enough glues and nails for it to be okay. As I said at the beginning, the mock stitch doesn't sew two pieces of leather together. It just puckers the vamp piece to form a mock toe design. The hardware looks like antique brass. A total of nine fasteners on a six inch boot. Six eyelets properly backed and three speed hooks also securely backed. The laces that come with the boots are thick, flat waxed laces. The width of the laces and the spacing of the eyelets and hooks means that when laced up, it can look pretty busy down there. The uppers leather is, as I said earlier, from Lafarge tannery. Stridewise lists it as the best 10 tanneries in the world. It certainly has some very sustainable practices and supply makers like Thursday Boot Company, Timberland and Wolverine. This leather is described by Rhodes as a waxed and tumbled full grain leather, meaning that it contains waxes in it, that it's tumbled for suppleness, and that they don't clean up or sand or buff the grain side of the leather, the hair side of the animal, allowing it to show the grain of the skin. They also say that it will age and patina over time. In my opinion, it's no chrome excel. I'm pretty sure it's chrome tanned. It doesn't have much pull up characteristic, but it's decent enough. I don't think remarkable, but the waxy finish means it can take a shine if you want, and after six plus months of regular, but not frequent wear, it is showing some variation and the reddish tone is starting to show through the brown and it's looking good. There's creasing over time, not bad at all. No horrible lumpy creases, but small crystalline breaks only. I usually look to the bootmaker to see how they recommend that I look after the leather, but I can't find any indication of care instructions on the Huckbury website. So let me make my own deliberations. It's a wax leather, so I go back to my go-to product for smooth leathers, good old Venetian shoe cream. Can't go wrong there. This leather is a little easier than chrome excel to care for. It doesn't scuff as easily. I've conditioned it with VSC a couple of times now and the leather hasn't darkened. I think the wax on the surface protects it somewhat. I'll leave a link to Venetian shoe cream in the description below if you want to get a bottle. You can polish it if you want. I don't because I prefer my non-dress boots to have a sheen rather than a shine. If you do polish it though, I'd use a neutral cream polish for two reasons. One is I don't like wax polishes because I think those leave a waxy residue that I don't like the feel of and I think they can clog the leather pores. And also, number two, I use neutral so that the patina can develop. There is definitely color variation showing. You don't want to make it all a uniform brown. Apart from that, brush and make sure you keep it clean after each wear. Now, given the look of the design, the sleeker mock-toe box and the look of the leather, what would you wear it with? Well, it's a casual boot. I said I wouldn't compare it to the old and indie, but in this case I must. I think the indie boot is a casual boot as well, especially based on the fact that it was at first a work boot. However, I think the indie, at least in the 403 Chrome Excel or in the 405 Carve Skin, can be polished up and worn with a less dressy suit. Think of tweeds or a plain wool suit with texture and less shine to it. I don't think you can wear the roads owned with a suit of any description. It has a wide and light colored welt, a very wide welt. It's a 360 degree welt, which means that the ledge formed by the welt goes all the way around the sole, making that heel very obvious. The pull tab could be a pain, hitching up your nice suit trousers that you catch us all the time. So, we stay casual. As a casual boot, I think you can wear it with jeans. Maybe not the frayed kind, it's a sleek and quite elegant boot, but otherwise any dark or mid-wash jeans with t-shirts or polo shirts or button downs, you can wear it as smart casual or business casual. What's the difference? I define smart casual as dressy enough to take your significant other out to a nice restaurant, but casual enough to stay relaxed through the night. That might involve things like wool pants or dress pants and a button-up or a sweater and a sports coat. I'd also include a slight hipster look, maybe brown pants, a casual shirt, a waistcoat or a vest, and a sports coat, something like that. Business casual, I define to be a slightly stricter degree than most, I think. So let's say chinos, a dress-office shirt, a tie or no tie, doesn't matter, and a dark blazer. I'm not sure it's a totally rugged casual boot, thinking lumberjack flannels, I don't think so. Let's talk sizes. The Hupbury website says that the Owen boot fits true to size and that we should take our normal size in boots. Well, that's a confusing statement if ever there was one. If you're already into boots, you'll know that most boot brands run large. This means that in most cases, you need to take a half-size down from what you measure as true to size on a brand new device. Take me as an example. I'm an eight and a half in D-width on a U.S. brand new device. In almost all my boots, from old-school Alden, Redwing, Wolverine, and Ellen Edmonds, to my new school, Parkhurst Thursday, Grant Stone, and Truman, I wear a size eight, not an eight and a half. So for me, true to size is eight and a half, my normal boot size is eight. How the heck am I supposed to stay true to size and to take my normal size in boots? Okay, so for me, I took my usual size eight and that's how you need to go. Do not go true to size, go down a half. However, that's if you have an average D-width. The Owen boot does not come in different widths, so presumably if you're an E or a double E, you may have to go true to size. I don't know what kind of response you'd get because I haven't tried, but I try to contact HubBreat if you're not sure. Alternatively, you can try going to grail.co, G-R-A-Y-L-E.co. It's a website that's compiling a database of user reviews about sizing and sets to predict your size in a variety of boots. So far, it's worked for me. In my size, the fit is great. The heel is snug and locked in, the waist is fitted, and there's plenty of room at the ball of my feet. And the toe box is generous and so it's comfortable. As for comfort, these boots are actually quite comfortable out of the box. In the right size, I had no breaking issues other than maybe a couple of ways to break the soles in and allow them to flex properly. They were quite stiff to start with and they're reasonably stiff now. The leather isn't very thick and it's very supple. So again, in the right size, the generous last and the supple uppers meant no hotspots, even at the mock toe stitching, which can cause problems. It's quite heavy on the foot, mainly because of this thick sole structure, but it has enough shock absorption with the foamy back into the insole and the arch support because the last tucks the waist in quite a bit is pretty good. The Vibram mini lug sole gives excellent grip over most ground and other ground surfaces. These boots were listed at US$265 in 2021. And at the date of this review, they show at the same price. I bought these on sale at US$146 and I still see from time to time that they do go on sale on the Huckabee website at about that price. Okay, these are not old and in quality, but you're not paying old and prices. What you do get is a solid boot. Okay, maybe unremarkable, but solid and good looking. The leather stands up. The sole is from Vibram, tough and it's thick and grippy. To me, it's very comfortable from out of the box. It fits my feet well and doesn't make my feet hurt or tired. And it's good you're welted. All in all, even at full price of US$265, I think that's pretty good value. The issue if you like them is that you may have to hunt for them. They seem to run out of stock every now and then, but if you're persistent, they come back on the website and sometimes if you like the variety, you can get them in suede or wet suede versions. There you go. My review of the Rhodes Owen Boop. I hope you liked the review and if you did, I hope you click on the like button to help me grow my channel. If you want to stay reminded when I put up more boot reviews, click on subscribe as well and YouTube will tell you when I have something new up. Take care and I'll see you soon.