beautiful boots for this winter
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As Alfred Lord Tennyson once famously noted: "'Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all". True when it comes to people, but what about things? Naturally I defer to the wisdom of the bellicose laureate on matters of the heart, but I do wonder whether a man who wore his own name the wrong way round for such a long time could have known anything at all about clothes.
For as we dandies know, the loss of a perfect garment is an unhealable wound. The bereaved is doomed to wander the streets (browse Asos) in torment, choking back hot, bitter tears (chai lattes) and whispering hushed entreaties to a god they no longer believe in (Google), begging for their loved one's safe return. (Or something similar, maybe in black.)
It's a pain I know too well. Ten years ago I accidentally Oxfammed my Toast boots: tall and flat (we were a perfect match in that respect) in chestnut-brown, school-satchel leather. The kind of boots that spare you a conversation with men who may later describe your exchange as "pure bantz", and that make your favourite female friends all rush out and buy a pair. I miss them still, but even I realise that a decade of bitter winters spent haunting the high street like Marley's ghost in search of identical replacements is probably long enough.
Happily my quest for the perfect wearable (walkable) winter boot has put me in the way of some marvellous footwear, from the gold-tipped Miista flats (top right) that helped me get my groove back to my fantasy Burberry numbers and all-weather, any-terrain Sorels – their inclusion is partly in response to a reader's request: if you've ever trudged through the rain in damp, rapidly expanding Ugg boots, Sorel is a brand you need to know about!
So this week I'm sharing my finds with you. I'm also resolving to take the advice of another great poet, Stephen Stills: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."