Well Heeled
Article by Madeleine Stuchbery
A pair of leather boots are a staple of regional living. Comfortable, practical, and respectable, they are an image deeply entrenched in bush culture. But our choice of brand and boot style often speaks to our own choices, judgements, and identities in rural Australia. They are a statement of self, a marker of cultural significance and increasingly of affluence. In this piece, writer Madeleine Stuchbery explores her connection not just fashion but to the foibles of nostalgia.
Fresh from the box, the boots were inky black, dark like wine, and swaddled delicately in white tissue paper. They smelled of leather and chemicals, and the broad sweep of their terracotta sole was like a puppy’s tongue. They looked, felt, and smelled expensive. I’d purchased my first grown-up boots — a pair of R.M. Williams — when I was about thirty years old. I chose them based on several criteria: the stacked heel, not too high for me at nearly six feet tall, but not flat either, giving an impression of formality and polish; the black leather buffed to a dark sheen, resplendent like a thoroughbred; and the pointed toe narrowing to an aggressive point. When I pulled them on for the first time I walked down the hallway at home and thought of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. They were tight with their first wear, different to the battered pair of Blundstones I wore as frequently as others might wear sneakers, the leather soft and white with pale patches of fatigue. As I paid them off over two months via a buy-now- pay-later service, the leather yielded to the contours of my feet, softening with fatigue and familiarity.
One of the first times I wore my new boots was to the hairdresser for a post-Covid trim in the inner-city sanctum of South Yarra. A woman in the neighbouring chair complimented me on the boots, saying something about how clean and polished they were. She spoke at me through the mirror, the reflected versions of us conversing. I sipped my complimentary tea and noted our many differences. She was blond with a straight, neat cut framing her round, plentiful face. My brown curls fell around my face in a gently chaotic manner. My legs — longer than hers — stretched towards the floor-length mirror before me. Her legs were tucked discreetly underneath her chair. I noted she was wearing a similar pair of boots to me. But where mine were polished, resplendent in their box-fresh glory, hers were rough and worn, the leather dull where mine shone. The toe of her black boots were scuffed from wear: mine neat and whole, as yet unmarred by the world. I had polished them earlier that morning. My own churlish judgments led me to think she must be a city girl. In my family, no-one would be allowed to walk around in a pair of boots in such a state of disrepair. No matter what brand or style of boot you wore, one thing was certain: they must be polished and clean.
I lifted my mug to my mouth once more.
A sensible pair of boots is to regional people what a calf-length puffer jacket is to urbanites. It is a multitudinal marker: of affluence, upbringing, class and attitude. These items of clothing speak to something that reaches beyond a covering from the weather and the elements. The average cost of a pair of R.M. Williams Lady Yearling boots is more than $600, and the Craftsman boot at almost $650. Both pairs are manufactured in Australia. A pair of Blundstone women’s Chelsea boots will set you back almost $240, with Blundstone producing their leather products in Vietnam, India, China, Mexico and Thailand. Rossi - who produces the majority of their boots domestically - sells a pair of Mulga Claret boots at $280. This speaks to the price that accompanies provenance, history, and craftsmanship, all of which have been whittled away in recent decades by an uptick in overseas manufacturing and a decline in Australia’s domestic textile workforce. A 2021 report into the Australian fashion and textile industry found of the 489,000 Australians em- ployed in the fashion and textile industry, only 6600 are employed in textile supply, and 27,500 people employed in the manufacturing of items throughout the textile value chain. I don’t doubt the necessity of the price of such an item of footwear: the traceability of materials, and the workforce behind its production deserving of fair wages and job security. But it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that such a price point flavours this exchange with a sense of exclusivity, inaccessibility, and affluence. At times I note a gnawing cynicism within me when confronted with cowboy culture and outback outfitters hijacking Australia’s working-class heritage to sell high-end expensive boots.
I was a mid-career journalist before I was in a position to purchase my pair of fancy boots. And even then, cash slipped in birthday cards and a voucher from my in-laws peppered the transaction. This isn’t to shirk away from my contextual privilege as an employed, middle-class, educated individual. But life in Australia’s remote and rural communities isn’t the same as it is in Sydney’s eastern suburbs or Melbourne’s greeny southeast. The Grattan Institute Regional patterns of Australia’s economy and population report, published in 2017, showed Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Cottesloe in Perth, and Stonnington in Melbourne were home to the highest taxable incomes in the country. Australia’s lowest taxable incomes were in Tasmania and the far north coast of NSW, central Victoria, and southern Queensland. The report also showed most regional areas in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, and southern Queensland have below-average incomes. And if you don’t live in a mining town, you’re more likely to have a lower income and less likely to be tertiary-educated. It has led me to hold the rusted-on belief that this mode of footwear – still heralded as workwear inspired by the outback and the bushmen who work the land – is now the reserve of concrete cowboys: those inner-city bankers and other elites far from paddock and pasture, who seem to me to be emulating a kind of contrived wholesomeness often associated with country folk. Or, even worse, the politician dumped into an agricultural portfolio left floundering and confused under the broad brim of their box-fresh rabbit-pelt hat.
Salted through my attitudes about fashion are my perceptions of class, status, reputation, and nostalgia. This is compounded when I ask on social media for opinions of boot brands and what they say about a person. The thread explodes with comments, the notifications pinging my phone for days on end. The consensus seemed to be that Australian-made, comfort, and longevity are key features of a good boot. Certain brands are for “wankers”, while others are more authentic, reliable, and comfortable for farm work. Which I believe speaks to the maxim of authenticity and practicality touted by most regional Australians. You are of no use to anyone if you can’t be relied on, if you can’t be practical and useful to your neighbour. I think of the young boys from my university days trotting across campus in their spotless brown boots and chino pants, and how my judgments are more a reflection of my prejudices rather than an assessment of people’s impractical clothing choices. I once made the mistake of wearing sandals to a lamb sale, much to the chagrin of my cousin, a livestock agent who spied me from the rails and made a point of teasing me. He’s never let me forget it, even going as far as to give me a boot polishing set for a wedding present.
But mostly when I see a pair of polished boots, I think of my grandfather. He exists in my mind as an image of dedication and solitude. He was a man who would never leave the farm in unpolished boots. One of my earliest memories is of him seated on the back doorstep of the farmhouse, a soft cloth and a boot in his hands. He always wore a grey woollen jumper worn soft from repeated wear, and a flannelette shirt jutting at the collar. A man of the land, his hands were brown and weathered. He would hold his brush and dip it into a bronzed tin of nugget before slowly working the polish into the leather. A soft cloth would then tenderly wipe away the excess.
My grandfather took pride in his boots. Even his work boots were brushed clean at the end of each day, the investment of his time shining in the layers of polish. Every time I dip the bristles of my brush into my polish, I want to be back on that sunny porch step. With every layer of polish, slowly built into the leather, I am trying to get close to that feeling. Every step I take in my boots conveys a message about who I am, where I am from, and what I wish to contribute to the world I am walking through.
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