Bringing this subject back to life in case anyone's interested. I went to see the bootmaker yesterday in his workshop.
He drew round my feet and took some measurements so he could compare them with the lasts he's got. I also tried on a few pairs he's got in the shop to see what he thought would fit. He didn't have the exact boots I wanted in the right size but he had some different styles made on the same last and also a pair made on a women's last so we got an idea of what might work.
Here's what he had out in the shop. I'm going for a pair like the top right or bottom right. If you look carefully the top pair have a flat sole and the bottom pair have a heel, I'll be getting the heeled sole which he also said is more hard wearing. Compare them to my wife's purple boots and you'll see he's altered the design a bit. He can also tweak them to my preference should I want.
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None of the boot fit me quite right, mainly because I've got shallow feet and skinny ankles, I always have to pull my boots fully closed and even then my heel often lifts off.
Basically what he thinks will work is using a size 7 last but giving it the length of a size 8. He can then remove some material from the back of the boot and move the eyelets further in so I won't have to pull them all the way closed. Also my left foot is a touch longer than my right so he can take that into account
I'm not in any rush so what he's going to do is before summer make a couple of display pairs of the boots in a standard size 7 and size 8 so I can go and try them on properly and he can decide exactly what adjustments need to be made.
In the meantime here's a rather blurry photo of the leather options he's got in stock. Top right are vegan leather but he's phasing that out as he considers the leather he uses to be a byproduct so prefers it to virgin vegan leather. Middle right is nubuck and bottom left is hand tanned and rather stiff so mainly suitable for belts. So I've got a couple of months to think about colour schemes and what will work and exactly how wacky I want to be. Of course the colours will age and for an idea of how much, that bottom pair started off as navy but have been left out in the sun and faded to a cool looking metallic sort of grey purple. Blues are more prone to this sort of fading apparently.
At the moment I'm thinking of some sort of combination of red and grey/black but I might well change my mind. I want them to look personal but not too much like clown shoes...
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