 Hi, my name is Tech, this is my channel Bootlossophy and this is my review of the Thursday Boot Company's Captain Boot in Brown Thursday Chrome. I have to tell you, this was my gateway drug into American style heritage boots. So this is Thursday Boot Company's Captain Boot. Up front let me say that I'm going to review this boots and all. So I will have complimentary things to say about it as well as point out some shortcomings. But when I am complimentary, note that I'm not sponsored by Thursday. So when I am complimentary, it'll mean I really like what I see. This one in the Brown Thursday Chrome, the version of Chrome Excel which I'll talk about later. I bought this pair in November 2020. As you can see, it is a bit worn. But after this buy, I really started getting into quality Goodyear World service and work boots. So it ended up in my regular rotation with over 40 pairs of boots which means that it doesn't really get quite enough wear. Still, every time I put it on, the comfort and looks makes me really regret not wearing it as often. I've owned primarily Timberland boots and a no-name cowboy boot are in my original rotation. And of course, being an Australian, I had a couple of pairs of RM Williams Chelsea boots to start with. But I really wanted an army boot style of boot. And watching YouTube channels like StrideWise and others, I stumbled on one of the more affordable Goodyear World to dress service boots in this Thursday captain. As you can see, this is a sleek looking but still functionally tough looking combination service work and dress boot. The design follows heritage models like the Iron Ranger with a cap toe and typical six inch uppers. But it's sleek down to make it look dressier and more versatile. The toe box has more of a slim almond shape to it. And the profile has a lower sleek pointiness to it. More like a cap toe dress shoe than really a chunky boot. Each boot weighs about 645 grams, or just over 1.4 pounds. Not particularly light because of the Goodyear welt, which I'll talk about when I get to construction. But certainly lighter than many of the other service and work boots that you might compare it with. It comes in a variety of leathers, some with lug soles. These are studded. So at the time of filming comes in 17 different makeups. If you don't find a pair that you like to look off, or man, you're hard to buy for. The Thursday boot company was started by two MBA students, Nolan Walsh and Connor Wilson in 2014. As a management consultant myself in real life, I love the idea of two MBA nerds who do what MBAs do, start their own company. But in the boot making world in which neither had any experience. Legend has it that while still doing their MBA they went on a surfing trip to Nicaragua and through a chance encounter with someone who made bespoke boots identified a real gap in the market, clarified their vision and made it their mission to make a combination dressy service boot that could be worn in a variety of occasions. And also in an affordable sub $200 US range. As fairytale as is their success, it's not without controversy. Firstly, the captain uses non-heritage materials, EVA and poron, and many other boot enthusiasts turn their noses down at that. Also, Thursday boots are largely made in Mexico with largely leathers from a Mexican tannery. While there are a US made range, the captain boot is made in Leon, Mexico. Some say that because of that there is a concurrent lowering of quality, but others who've had the experience of the brand since 2014 say improvements in materials and construction have improved considerably. I own a number of Thursday boots since this buy, and I have to say the ones that I have had most QC issues with were the American made vanguards. Today's economics is global. Don't forget Washington Wilson are Americans. Thursday is an American company. They employ Americans in New York and elsewhere, and they pay American taxes. If you're making a political choice, i.e. only made in America, well, good on you mate. But if you think that made somewhere else is automatically not as good quality, I don't think that holds water. Quality is about process and procedures, not about where it's made. A good company can, and they do, apply strong QC processes during manufacture anywhere in the world and back it up with good customer service. And that's one thing that Thursday shines through on. If you pay attention to the reviews and various Facebook group comments, their customer service is lauded as amongst the best, focused on making sure that the customer is happy. To the point of offering credits or exchanges in situations where I've seen other companies just laugh in your face. At the end of the day though, in terms of ultimate quality, you're not going to get a $600 pair of Aldens or an $800 pair of Weiburgs, but at $200 you get what you pay for. But in my opinion, you get pretty awesome value for money at that price point. Let's go on and see why I think so. But before we go on, if you're liking this video, how about helping me out by clicking on the like and subscribe buttons below? It helps me put the video out to more people's views, and that really helps my channel. Let's now look at how this boot is constructed, as usual from the bottom up. The outsole is a studded rubber outsole. For those of you who don't know, it's modeled after the famous UK made day night sole, which you're going to see on many mid to high end boots, even those made in America. The rubber composition is not as hard as a day night sole. And that kind of helps in the overall comfort, but it may not be as long lasting. And the studs you see here still make it quite grippy in my use case scenarios. I wear these as casual and dress boots in a mainly urban environment, walking around carpeted offices, outside and pavements and grass lawns, and on tile shopping center floors, timber pub floors, that sort of thing. I haven't slipped in these use cases, and they always feel safe. The heel is a stacked leather heel. And as you can see, it started to show some stress lines. I think the leather stacks are perhaps moving against each other, but I'm not worried about it coming apart. If you watch a video by Trenton and Heath on YouTube where they re-sole a captain boot, you'll see that the heel stack is pretty well fixed. The sole is attached to the uppers using Goodyear welter construction. It's a 360 degree Goodyear welt. For those of you who know, forgive me, but for those of you who don't, Goodyear welting is a type of stitch construction to stitch the uppers to the sole. A thin strip of leather called the welt goes all the way around the circumference of the boot and is stitched to the turned in uppers on the inside edge of the welt. And the outside edge of the welt, as you can see here, is stitched through to the midsole and directly to the outsole. The preferred advantage is that it's easily re-soleable. A good cobbler can cut these outside stitches, remove the outsole, and without tampering with the uppers or the welt, re-stitch them to a new outsole. Because there's an added layer, not directly sewn through to the sole of the boot on the inside, Goodyear welt construction is also reputed to be more water resistant, less holes, you see, especially in a 360 degree Goodyear welt, because that protection goes all the way around. Some people say the downside is that you have a less sleek heel. You have a kind of a ledge back here, but to be honest, these are made quite close to the heel cup to still look sleek enough. Okay, moving up, inside is an EVA midsole. This is where some of the contention arises. Traditional boots are made with leather and cork insoles that are supposed to mould the shape of your foot over time and therefore be more comfortable over time. EVA foam is used in the athletic shoes and sneakers that you wear, so it's very shock absorbing, but not very traditional. In there is also a steel shank, which provides arch support here in this gap here and provides torsional stability over rough ground. Then the insole itself is a pour-on insole, a kind of memory foam wrapped in leather cover. The long and short of it is that it's a very comfortable shock absorbing boot from day one hour one minute one, straight out of the box. However, the negative is that the EVA insole and the pour-on insole, like your athletic sneakers, may get squashed over time and lose the memory in the memory foam and therefore be less comfortable over time, just as traditional leather and cork midsole start to become more comfortable. So the argument goes, why have a resoldable shoe when it becomes less comfy just when you need to re-sole it? Look, I don't know. I haven't had it long enough for the pour-on and EVA strip to wear down and I know that I have had seriously uncomfortable breakings with traditional boots. So who's right? As I said earlier, the uppers are Thursday's own chrome tanned leather also from Leon, Mexico. It's the version of the famous, and seen everywhere, chrome excel leather from Halloween tannery in Chicago. I've boots in both. There is no mistaking the depth in color and the oily waxy feel of chrome excel or CXL for short. This leather is not chrome excel, but it's a pretty good substitute. It wears well, like CXL it scuffs quite easily, like CXL. You can easily restore it by rubbing it with your thumb with a bit of heat and giving it a good brushing because it's just so full of waxes and oils and they move around. The boot is fully leather lined. So altogether it's about two mils thick, pretty usual for boots like these. The stitching is pretty good. Three stitches in the toe cap on a two plus one pattern and I think this is a proper double layer toe cap. The same double and triple stitching in the quarters. There's also double stitching around this one piece heel stay. Five backed eyelets and two also backed speed hooks are pretty sturdy. In over a year's wear, I have not come across loose hardware or loose stitching. I do have a problem with the tongue though. It's an ungusseted tongue just attached to the back here at the front. My problem with ungusseted tongues is that if the tongue isn't wide enough the tongues of my boots tend to slide to the side. I know you can get a cobbler to just put a couple of stitches to one side just keeping the tongue in place, but I did my own DIY solution and I used a chisel to punch a couple of slits so that I could thread the laces through here. Care for this leather is pretty simple. I don't wear these particularly hard so I haven't needed any saddle soap. Just a wipe down with a damp cloth, a good brushing and then I use Venetian shoe cream to condition it maybe a couple of times a year. The leather has a morone or burgundy base to it so I wouldn't necessarily recommend brown shoe cream. The Venetian shoe cream that I use is neutral and I guess if it were badly scuffed I might use some burgundy shoe cream to put some color back. So that's the construction. Now let's take a look at the sizing and fit. My Branex size, you know that aluminum machine that you stand on to measure your feet. My Branex size is a US 8.5 in a D width. Now following Thursday's customer service I emailed them for some advice. I sized half down to an 8D and it's a pretty good fit. Now for those of you watching from Australia or the UK, US sizes are one number up. For example my British Branex size is 7.5 and that's equivalent to a US 8.5. I had some initial break-in issues at the beginning mainly due to the sleek design of the toe box. My toes exactly where the cap toe stitch was was a little squeezed and sore after a day's wear. They eventually broke in in a couple of weeks. I helped it along by conditioning the toe cap stitches on the outside as well as inside and I used a ballpoint hammer to just massage the inside outwards when I was watching TV of an evening. I can tell you after two weeks and a walk in the rain these are one of the most comfortable boots I own. I am always surprised by how comfy they are every time I put them on. The leather despite the full leather lining is soft and supple. The shock absorption is probably the best I have. I suspect though that the last that's the form on which they build the boot is not necessarily kind to a wider foot because of the sleek design. Unfortunately Thursday don't offer wide sizes in all of their boots but if you live in the US they offer free returns. Not so much if you live overseas which is why I bought these from Thursday's own Amazon store so I could take advantage of Amazon's own free return policies. You can buy them mail order from the Thursday website but I'll also put a link to the Amazon site where you can buy them and check out the links below. Now what do I wear them with? As I said earlier my use cases are usually urban so the sleekness and colour means that I've even worn them with a charcoal and a navy suit. With the shaft covered up by your trousers and if they're nicely polished I think they look like dressy cap toe shoes to be honest. The slimness of that sole also helps that look. To me this is not a work boot it's a service slash dress boot so to me you can pair it with anything casual ranging from jeans to rugged casual and I think even to dressy or business casual. I wear the captains with dark jeans for a more dressy look or with mid-wash or light wash denim. I wear them with khaki chinos and a polo shirt or a button down even five pocket pants and a t-shirt. I'd be totally happy wearing them with business casual you know dressier pants or chinos a button-up dress shirt and a blazer or a sports coat. I think this is a really versatile boot in terms of pairing with clothes and will suit a range of many occasions. I don't know do you agree? Let me know what you think in the comments below. So let's take a look at the value is it worth it? The captain sells for US $199 and is available on their website or at the only Thursday store in New York City. For those of us overseas you'd have to buy from their website but because of the possibility that it doesn't fit or it's not quite what you want after you get it and see it I'd recommend buying it from the Amazon Thursday store. It's the official Thursday store within Amazon. I'll put a link in the description below. It is an affiliate link and I will earn a slight kickback but it doesn't cost you anymore. As an entry into quality boots it's really set at a great price for what you get. In US dollar terms Timberland boots sell for around 150 to 190 dollars. Dot Martens sell for 130 to 200 dollars. Chippewa if you can still get them about 200 dollars. Certainly as a level entry boot you can't get more for 200 dollars. So there you are my review of the Thursday boot company Captain Boot. I think this is the most versatile dress slash service boot that you can get and not sponsored remember and unbeatable value in terms of construction materials wear and looks for 199 dollars. 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