 G'day, welcome to Bootlossophy. If you haven't been here before, my name is Tech. I'd first like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that I'm filming on, The Watch of People. Now, this is just a quick video on my initial impressions of the Caswell Lisbon Service Boot. So Caswell Bootmakers came into my radar when I saw the founder Kevin Wilson being interviewed by my mate Dale on his channel at Aero Surfer LV on one of his real boot talks. I'll leave a link to that video up there and probably in the description below. Kevin struck me as being a really nice guy and I was quite interested in it. But the interesting thing is that immediately after that video, I got a heck of a lot of DMs on my Instagram account asking me if I was going to review Caswell Boots and I do mean a lot of DMs. So after that, that got me interested and I contacted Kevin Wilson through my Instagram account. I direct messaged him and I asked him, would he be interested in sending me a pair of boots for review? And he very kindly agreed. So full disclosure, these are a free pair of boots for review, but there were no terms agreed. In fact, there was no discussion about what I could or couldn't say. So this is going to be a pretty full bore on pros and cons review of these boots and I'm going to be totally honest about it. So this boot is from Caswell Bootmakers Company based in Washington, DC, which I think you'll agree with me is not exactly seen as the bootmaking capital of the world. But Kevin Wilson, the founder, is based there. He's obviously got a vision for making great boots. There is a bit of check of history with Caswell. I think Kevin started a Kickstarter campaign, which I don't think quite reached the cap. He started in 2019. So guess what? 2020, COVID, huge dent in his plans. The US factory that he was contracting went out of business. Towing and throwing, he eventually found a factory in Spain to make these. And these were produced late last year. So this is the plain toe service boot model. And in all aspects, it's what you would expect from a service boot. It's plain toe. It's good year welded. There are two quite large, quite generous quarters so that the lace facings meet quite closely in the middle. Some people have said to me, oh no, some boots are too small for you to be judging by the lace facings, which let's face it is total ES because it depends on the size of the quarters that are designed. There's a single piece backstage coming up the top that I mentioned was a six inch boot as all service boots are stacked leather heel. The stitching is actually pretty good. There's triple stitching at the quarters, double stitching at the heel counter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven brass eyelets. They come with two pairs of laces, some extremely long leather laces, which I cut down as well as a thin cotton lace, which I found a bit too thin for this sort of style boot. The sole is a Vibram Laundra sole. If you watch my videos, you know Vibram is Italian. The Laundra design is very similar to the UK company Ridgeway design, which is often used by Weiberg and Parkhurst has used them in the past. I really like this sole because it's quite low profile, but it's also very grippy without those deep lugs that could pick up lots of gravel. The uppers is a key factor in these boots. They also make them casual, also make them in smooth leathers and other leathers, but this is Charles F. Stead's Waxy Commander. Those of you who have watched my videos will know that I really do lean towards Waxy Commander or Wax Sway. Bordon Columbia, all my boots, three of them from Bordon Columbia are in Wax Sway, but they're from an Italian tenor. I have a couple of grandstones. They're brass boot in earth and they're Edward Boot and I think called Waxy Tobacco, which is from the Charles F. Stead Waxy Commander series. This one's called Waxy Commander Snuff and by that I take it to mean that under this very dark wax layer on top, the base Sway layer is a snuff color, a very gingery sort of color, which is going to show through rather nicely. I've worn this boot for half a day and look at the patina starting to show through. So, you know, I'm looking forward to this starting to wear and really showing through in its patina. The inside is fully lined. If there are any cons to be mentioned, the tongue is not gusseted. I'm a fan of a gusseted or a semi-gusseted tongue because I have a weird right foot or a weird right footed step because if you have an unguesseted tongue, I find that they tend to slip to one side on my right foot. I've worn this for about half a day, as I've said, but there's been no sign of tongue slippage because I think the leather on the tongue is quite thick and it's also lined. The design of the boot is quite traditional. There's nothing, you know, particularly fancy about it, but it's a nice put-together package on a very nice, quite sleek almond-shaped last. Looking at this and looking at round-toed lasts like the Parker 602 or the Leo Larson Grandstone, you'd think this is quite squeezy, but I have no problems with it at all, which leads me to talk about sizing and comfort. Now, I measure an eight and a half D, that's the width, on a US brand-new device. And for most heritage-style boots, particularly American boots, I have to size a half down. So measuring eight and a half D, I normally buy an eight D in American heritage boots. These are true to size. I emailed direct message Kevin and we worked out the sizing and he recommended, after I gave him a couple of different boots I had, different sizes, he recommended going two to size at eight and a half D and that was the right call. They fit really perfectly, no hot spots, no pinching, extremely comfortable on the uppers, straight out of the box. There is a little heel slippage and I think that's because it has quite a sort of up and down design to the back. Often you find that if they have more of a cup, or as I said in my Iron Rangers review, if they had Kim Kardashian's backside shape, you tend to find that the heel doesn't slip as much because it sits in that cup. When this breaks in and this starts to soften and move backwards, that'll be fine. Apart from that, there was no breaking required. As I said, it was comfortable right out of the box. I honestly, I can't feel it, but when your feet are in it, your arch is really well supported. This is one of the best arch supported boots that I have in my collection that certainly I felt as soon as I opened the box, which is quite strange because it's no particular sort of design to it like an olden boot where you can say that's where it comes from. Now, talking about price, these are listed at $339.95 US dollars on the website as are all of his Lisbon boots. They also have a cap toe design jumper boot and a chucker boot and all three models in different make-ups of leather and so on. I think at $339.95, call it $340. I think that's pretty much the sweet spot for this middle of the range service boot styles, you know, like they compete with Grant Stones and Parkhursts and people in that middle range. And certainly in terms of quality, apart from a little gripe about that ungusted tongue, there's a little bit of a hinky two or three stitches there. It looks like the machine had to go back a couple of times. So in terms of quality, other than those tiny little things, I think my friend who Derek messaged me was quite right. This is a pretty legit new brand to look at. And if you want to have a look at them, I'll put a link to the website in the description below. So that was my initial impressions of these Caswell Lisbon boots in Swade, Waxy Commander Swade. As you know, what I do is I'll wear them for a few weeks or a few months and I'll bring you a more in-depth review where I'll look at the construction in detail, but I'll also look at the bootmaker in detail and I'll send a few questions to Kevin to ask him about where he got his vision to start a bootmaking company and as well the history of Caswell so far. So other than that, take a look at his website and don't forget, click the like button if you like this video and of course if you're not subscribed, don't forget to click on the subscribe button. Until then, take care and I'll see you soon.