Comment by marcus_holmes

Thanks, useful detail :)

High quality boots definitely don't cost >$1000, and definitely not boots that are on par with the quality of DM from the 80s. DM from the 80s were "fine", but they still weren't really high quality and their soles were definitely not very durable.

Even today you can find excellent quality, resoleable boots, for $200-300. Just look at Redwing, Thursday, Wolverine and many, many others.

Certainly not. You can buy great boots for 250$. I bought my Salomon boots 5 years ago, I wear them a heck of a lot in the Canadian winter, and they're good as new. Much more comfortable than a Doc Martens boot, even in their prime, resolable with a Vibram Megagrip sole, has a carbon fiber backing plate that will never wear out, etc...

What happened is that technology advanced, and now good quality boots don't look like Docs anymore. The market for high quality, vintage construction boots is tiny, because people who only care about quality won't buy them anymore, which is why they are expensive : only a special kind of people who care a lot about quality and looks/nostalgia are going to buy them.

People who need high quality boots just won't be satisfied with heavy, fussy, non-breathable leather and rubber boots.

I think I paid $300AUD for mine. I was very poor in the 80's, I would not have been able to afford the equivalent of $1000USD. I have vague memories of them costing around 80 GBP, which would be ~350 GBP now, so about half that $1K (but definitely more than I paid for them now, so your point is at least partially true).

And yes, I would be willing to pay that kind of money now for a pair of boots that would last me a decade again.

It was also kinda the point back in the 80's; your Docs were an investment. They cost decent money, but they'd last a decade and became part of your identity. Practically a physical extension of your body; I had a flatmate who regularly fell asleep in his and eventually developed trenchfoot from doing that. The boots were fine, his feet weren't. Most of my friends back in the day had one pair of shoes; their Docs. It was worthwhile investing in them because that was all you needed.

I think you're also right that the brand itself has changed and moved down-market, so they're charging less than they used to for a lower-quality product. But this is kinda my point; the brand is now being cannibalised and turned into a low-quality fast-fashion product marketed with a high-quality brand. This is obviously not going to work long-term, as people realise that Docs are now shite. As I said, in ten year's time the brand won't be worth anything.

It’s also late stage capitalism.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

Since the late 70s, policy changes and the modern management movement have caused worker pay to drop in real terms. Cut forward another decade or so and the entire retail landscape discovers people can no longer afford their products.

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This used to be what brand was all about - that you could trust the brand to produce high-quality stuff because it was a quality brand. All Doc Marten boots were well-made and solid, would last a decade at least, because it was a quality brand and the price tag came with that.

I know what high quality looks like; I wore my first Doc Martens for a decade. I trusted the brand when revisiting my youth and buying a new pair.

It seems someone figured out that the price tag goes with the brand, not the quality. So you can charge high prices for cheap boots if you put the DM tag on them. And make bank.

I think this will accelerate, and the "new and upcoming" brands will get shit at exactly the point where people like me discover them. Because, as you say, it's not worth the effort to keep up with this rapid churn.

Hence the Inverse Vimes solution: stop trying to buy quality and instead accept that everything is shit and deal with that reality; buy cheap and often.