Leather Boots
Leather is the whole argument here. Full-grain takes a scuff and keeps it. Waxed leather darkens along the flex line where your foot bends. Cordovan holds a shine longer than you expect it to. The colors run tobacco and black, brown and tan, cognac, natural, olive and grey, and every one of them reads differently after a season than it did in the box.
The shapes cover lace-up, chukka, chelsea, wingtip, moc toe, logger and hiker. A lace-up gives you the most control over the instep, which matters if your foot is high or narrow. A chukka sits low and asks little of you on the first wear. A chelsea has no laces at all, so the whole fit lives in the gore panel and the pull tab. A moc toe carries a raised seam across the vamp, and it creases in one line rather than a fan.
Break-in is short on some of these and long on others. Full-grain and waxed leather stay stiff through the shank and soften across the ball of the foot first. Give a new pair a week of half-days before you judge it. Cordovan does not crease so much as ripple, and the ripple is not damage.
Where a boot is welted or stitched down, the sole can be replaced when the tread goes, and the upper is usually the part worth saving. Wipe the salt off. Let a wet boot dry away from heat. Condition it when the leather looks matte and thirsty, not on a schedule someone handed you.
