The blisters (and damage to your feet) aren’t worth it, no matter how good looking they are on foot. Sure, the leather gives, but don’t bank on that happening to the point of a comfortable fit. (Also, keep in mind the fit on each of Red Wings boots is different just because you downsize 0.5 on a “moc toe,” doesn’t mean that’ll apply across the board on all styles). Never leave the store with a size that hurts your feet, to the point that you’re unable to wiggle your toes. People who’ve worn Red Wings for years, credible people, will say, “get your Red Wings as tight as you can stand out of the box.” In our opinion and the opinion of one of the shopkeepers at Red Wing, this isn’t always true. How tight is too tight? And how painful do you want that break-in process to be? Get your feet measured up before going further. In the Moc toe style (Red Wing offered to have us test these for the purposes of writing this article), we try a 10 and 10.5. Most have no problem spending hundreds of dollars on shoes, as easily as if they were buying a cup of coffee.Īs part of the fitting process, we try on two pairs of the 877s - the brand’s signature 8-inch boot, and perhaps the one for which they are most famous. The owner wears heritage worker chinos, a vest and a well-loved pair of Iron Rangers - one of the brand’s signature boots, notoriously difficult to break-in (wearing them new is like subjecting your feet to time in a Gulag). It’s dimly lit and woody, a modern day saloon with boots instead of bourbon. We visited the Red Wing Heritage brand store off Newburgh St. Beyond the break-in, here are a couple sure-fire ways to keep them looking fresh as the season turns time and time again. That tobacco-colored hue that’s so intoxicating. Now it’s time to preserve that aesthetic. If you’re already into the daily wear, you’ve likely crossed-over to the owners who wait greedily for temperatures to drop to admire their handsomeness. Red Wing is the “heritage” brand that’s become synonymous with quality, longevity and classicism. Their advice reads like a mea-culpa for shilling out $300 for a pair of shoes that ultimately hurt your feet. Wearers have gone so far as to have developed trusted break-in strategies. That a boot brand would deliberately make the brake-in period so brutal, so torturous, is odd. Coupled with their outstanding manufacture of long-lasting boots, the small-town Minnesota-based company (for which the boots are named) seems to lead a double-life as shoe-making masochists. So much so, it’s a well-documented thread, particularly on Reddit.
People struggle with the Red Wing boot break-in period.
#Old red wing boots how to#
Here, we connect with people who wear them and the company itself to understand how to break in boots that’ll last you a lifetime. If you’ve ever lusted after a pair, either for their longevity or comfort, you need to know yours, along with what the break-in process actually looks like, blisters and all. There’s your shoe size, then your Red Wing Heritage size. Red Wings, unlike, say, Helm’s, don’t fit true to size. That is part of the boot maker’s charm (and frustration). (Resale on Red Wings, like anything well-made, is exceptional.)
After a couple wears, we realized we bought them too big (a classic mistake) and sold them - better on someone else’s feet. A heady copper color, a project to break in and beautifully designed, all the same. (Once you own a Rolex, a lot of watches look like toys - that kind of thing.)Ī year after reading it, as Red Wings grew popular as a defacto celebration of “made in America,” we got our first pair: the 1907s. After buying his first pair, they became the yardstick for every other similar product he owned. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.Ī few years back, Ruaridh Nicoll penned a column in " The Guardian" about a two-decades long obsession with Red Wing Boots (he owns 11 pairs of the company’s infamously well-constructed and tough to break-in boots).
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