We want to talk about the Dr.Martens company and review their steel toe shoes in this article. The fact that they also produce other types of footwear, as in the footwear without the steel toe protection, is not a very well-known one, as the Dr.Martens company is mostly famous for its industrial models of footwear, and although we do want to cover all the products of this company, most of the information here touches only the steel toe models.
The brand’s origins date back to the old times of World War II, 1945. During that time an army doctor Klaus Martens, to whom the company also owes its name, upgraded the army boots that he found extremely uncomfortable to wear. Later, the new design of his boots proved to be so good that he and his old university friend decided to start selling the boots on a massive scale, which was the point when the company emerged.
The steel toe shoes of Dr.Martens of older times were extremely well-made – people praised them for their durability, good protection and longevity. They were no cheap steel toe shoes, but folks of various occupations, which included construction workers, policemen and postmen, all preferred them to other brands. Some men of the subculture called “skinhead”, however, also liked the designs of these boots, and 1970s were the times when you could see a lot of those bald ruffians with bland cheap mens jeans and steel toe shoes, craving to intimidate the ordinary people.
At the beginning of 2003 the company realized that they couldn’t support the production of the shoes in England no longer, so they moved their manufacturing forces to China. That, however, impacted the quality of their shoes, and some reviews claim that the Chinese models sometimes don’t last more than 6 months. There are, however, “Made in England” models still available, but you should be prepared to pay at least double of the Chinese models’ prices. Still, we think that it beats constantly buying a new pair of steel toe footwear every 6 months or so (which costs 100 bucks, too).
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