www.protoolreviews.com: How in the world do you recommend the best work boots for men and women in the trades? Every trade has different features and priorities and everyone’s foot is different. Add in literally thousands of choices from plenty of quality brands with different designs and styles, and it’s overwhelming.
8 comments:
You never truly understand the importance of comfortable, sturdy workboots until you are knees deep in a labor intensive crew call or outside doing a long day of work. Over the years of high school, I went through so many pairs of black combat boots, and I still have yet to find a super comfortable yet sturdy pair. I went through a pair of Docs that lasted me a while until they became so painful they were almost unbearable to walk in, and a few pairs of cheap amazon pairs that last me about a year each. I am now on a pair of vintage steel toed Harleys that aren’t too bad! I understand the importance of these work boots and that in order to find a good pair you might have to invest, but many of these boots in this article are not affordable. This has made it difficult for a lot of students to get a pair that works for them at a reasonable price, which is why I bought secondhand.
As someone who is currently looking for new work boots and has ended up breaking their foot due to a lack of steel toes I am very thankful this article exists. My current work boots here are an old pair of doc martens and my work boots back in my home town are old hiking boots (made by keen I believe). For me I have always been told that work shoes are where the running shoes go to die and it has taken me years to unlearn that mindset. The thing that has always gotten me about work boots are how expensive they can become. Looking at the article high end brands can cost almost half a grand which is understandable, however with low end brands still costing hundreds of dollars I know many people who have opted for improper footwear on worksites and gotten injured because of it. I feel that the importance of proper work boots should be emphasized more in theater and I will be acquiring a pair (Most likely second hand) before my next mini.
As someone who is currently looking for new work boots and has ended up breaking their foot due to a lack of steel toes I am very thankful this article exists. My current work boots here are an old pair of doc martens and my work boots back in my home town are old hiking boots (made by keen I believe). For me I have always been told that work shoes are where the running shoes go to die and it has taken me years to unlearn that mindset. The thing that has always gotten me about work boots are how expensive they can become. Looking at the article high end brands can cost almost half a grand which is understandable, however with low end brands still costing hundreds of dollars I know many people who have opted for improper footwear on worksites and gotten injured because of it. I feel that the importance of proper work boots should be emphasized more in theater and I will be acquiring a pair before my next mini.
Theo
As someone who has been looking heavily for work boots, I immediately clicked on this so I could find a great pair! The thing I’ve been struggling the most is finding women’s shoes, and since this article suggests women’s shoes, I was really prepared to find some. I was met with the same disappointment I face in my own search for shoes. As I browsed through to find shoes suited to theatre (not too high, not extremely bulky, preferably black for crew) there were tons of men’s options. Upon looking at each shoe brand that fit my preferences on this list, there were only 7-ish options for women to choose from. Many of them were not black, and some of them were shoes not suited for a hard-labor job like advertised. Many of the sites that sold women’s shoes didn’t even have any in stock while the men had hundreds of options. And, for people with small feet like me, I don’t fit into mens sizes. Plus, they are very expensive! I will continue to search for shoes that I can work in.
I feel like you never really realize how important having a good pair of shoes to work in is until you finally own one. Growing up on Maui, a lot of people that I know happened to just wear their slippers anywhere and everywhere. I had friends who would hike multiple miles in their slippers, warm up for musicals in their slippers, And every once in a while I would even see someone run a cross country race in their slippers. It is also honestly very common for people to forget their slippers at home, which seems kind of silly, happens way more often than you'd think. My freshman year when I took stagecraft class for the first time, I had a friend who would always forget his shoes for the shop. our first assignment was to make a box, and he made a wooden box to keep his close-toed shoes in for the class. ironically he ended up forgetting that box in the classroom by the end of the semester.
Finding good work boots that both fit well and are comfortable is a difficult task. I’ve gone through a couple of different brands and still have not found ones that I love, but I’ve found some that I like. I’m also a huge fan of shoe inserts and I have a few different kinds, both full sole and then just heel inserts. Unfortunately, standing for so long can really take a toll on one physically and even though I am still on the younger side, it feels like this line of work has already taken a toll on my body. It just doesn’t help that so many scene shops have concrete floors; I really try to implement different methods to keep myself physically healthy while on the job, including wearing a good and supportive pair of work boots. I’m actively on the lookout for more work boots to purchase before the summer – this article was helpful!
Personally I didn’t find this article particularly useful. I think work boots are a very personal choice and while many of these boots seemed useful I am personally drawn to shoes without stitching on the welt of the sole. I’ve found boots with welt stitching don’t last as long because the stitching tends to break and the sole becomes detached. The only boots I found appealing were the Red King Wing Toe. I prefer boots that are a composite toe because they are lightweight and you don’t have to worry about them being conductive. I found it was interesting that they included waterproof slip ons because I have no idea how those would be used in the work industry. I would be concerned about things falling into the boot. Personally I like my 5:11 boots because they have a high height, are composite toe, waterproof, leather, the sides zip as well as having laces, and the tongue is connected to the rest of the boot so nothing can get in between the tongue and upper part of the boot.
Now this was the article I’ve been looking for! Update after finishing this article: It was, unfortunately, not as helpful as I was hoping. I am currently in the process of figuring out which work boots to buy and I had yet to find a centralized article. I appreciate the categorization and inclusion of features - it's nice to see what features that are useful for theater and personal comfort are available for that shoe. I personally had really only heard of Blundstones and RedWing work shoes prior to starting to actually look around but I appreciate the other brands that are available. I have noticed when looking for both cargo pants and these that there are a lot more options in mens sizes than women's sizes. (And tragically, my feet are too small for men’s sizes so I’m out of luck for that solution.) While I’m hoping for more variety in terms of sizing, I will continue my search and use some of the parameters mentioned in this article to refine my search.
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