Desert Boots
Even though many ascribe the invention of this great British classic to Nathan Clark who, in 1949 designed a boot that was based on an item that officers of the British Eighth Army had made for them by local Egyptian tradesmen during the Second World War, its roots actually lie in India along with the jodhpur and the khaki trouser..
Initially, this traditionally two eyelet suede boot was named the ‘chukka boot’ after the playing period in polo and, often unlined and fitted with a rubber or leather sole had been brought back to the UK by the British Raj from the thirties on and was worn by rather louche crazy corduroy trouser wearing bohemians. Thus it was but a hop skip and a jump away when said ‘cool cats’, stationed in climates far too severe for the Brit army boot, had their faithful Chukkas copied in Cairo’s Old Bazaar. The result was the simple, comfortable, roughly fashioned crepe-soled suede boots which they wore off duty. And as often is the history of any garment - when an original is copied
what is lost or added in translation becomes the norm and as such becomes the blue print for another slightly different and at times equally iconic style. Ipso facto what is a desert boot if not a sloppily constructed chukka.
And it was such an article that Nathan Clark (of the famed Quaker Somerset shoemakers, C+ J Clarke) brought back from Burma where he’d been stationed with the West African Brigade in the late forties. Consequently, without a bye your leave he set about perfecting the Clark’s Desert Boot desert boot . In 1950 Nathan unveiled them at the Chicago shoe fair and sales went through the roof rocketed.
Of course the boot ticked all the relevant boxes for ‘hep’ in the early fifties. Their soft no nonsense structure was perfectly aligned with the free thinking jazz ideology of the day and paired with jeans and sweatshirt s became, along with open toed sandals and loafers, the chosen footwear for jazzers, beat poets and long hairs alike such as Jack Kerouac and his hero Neal Cassady..
Over in the UK middle class trad jazzers, skiffle kids and later beatniks - who added the obligatory Aran jumper, beard and duffle coat - initially championed the boot. They met in the 2i’s coffee bar in Old Compton Street and The Cat’s Whisker’ at the corner of Kingly Street and Beak Street, Soho and marched in their desert boots to Aldermaston holding their Ban The Bomb banners high.
MilliOnAir | STYLE FILES WITH CHRIS SULLIVAN