Fashionable for wearing around town but tough enough to handle horses and hiking? Meet Atitlan’s Victorian Lace Up Ankle Boots.
My name is Cathy Holcombe and I love leather so much that I actually invented my own natural leather conditioner, “Colorado Leather Balm,” sold here on Atitlan Leather’s site. (See farther down for a before and after using Colorado Leather Balm on my Atitlan Victorian Lace Up Boots)
When Walter, the owner of Atitlan asked me to write a blog post on Atitlan’s Victorian Lace Up Boots, I jumped at the chance. At the risk of sounding over dramatic, these boots really are a life changer. Not only are they beautiful to look at, being simultaneously fashionable and timeless in their brogue design, but wonder of wonders they are VERY well put together. Custom built of high quality leather that is both flexible and soft to the touch but still durable enough to work in. Niiice.
You see, in my Colorado Rocky Mountains world which includes riding and caring for horses every day as well as hiking and hunting elk and deer on occasion, I don’t often come across boots that actually both look great AND are high quality enough to handle hard use.
My lifestyle generally rules out owning boots that are solely in the “fashionable” category. Not only is the leather (if it’s even real!) on “fashion” boots too thin to hold up to any real use outside of walking indoors or the occasional sidewalk, but the soles of said footwear are also generally firmly in the camp of crappy. In addition to being poorly constructed, most fashion footwear also doesn’t work well for my sized large 10, very thin, flat feet. (My dad’s nickname for me was “Ski Feet.”) I’ve been informed on several occasions that at least I can balance more easily with such long feet. Good to know there is a silver lining available for those of us with big pedites. Less tipping over…
But I digress! Back to the Victorian Lace Up Boots, which have blown all of my previous footwear challenges out of the water. It IS possible to have both a modern and classic design as well as toughness in a boot. With their beautiful lacing, these boots can be minutely adjusted to conform to fit a wide variety of ankle and foot sizes; including my skinny, flat, ski feet. I also love that the Victorian Lace Up Boots are gorgeous enough to wear out on the town for a date night. I often wear them with tights or under a long skirt.
And yet…I can also wear them in the saddle. The Victorian Lace Up Boots’ soles use the goodyear welt construction method and have a solid heel which allows for a safe and comfortable boot to have in the stirrup while riding my horse. In fact, I’d venture to say these boots are as comfortable and functional in the saddle as many paddock boots constructed for horse riding only. Wearing these boots are like going back in time to a place when everything people wore was custom made, and all boots were hand made by cobblers. Pa and Ma Ingalls would have been proud to wear these boots!
Lastly, with regular usage, even the best leather needs some love and conditioning at some point to keep it happy. Colorado Leather Balm is a perfect fit to take care of Atitlan’s Victoria Lace Up Boots as well as all of their other wonderful quality leather products.
In Colorado’s dry climate, leather gradually over time dehydrates and needs to be replenished. While any leather conditioner will do in a pinch, the problem with the majority of leather conditioners out there is that they are chock full of synthetic and chemical based ingredients, some of which are actually harmful to leather in the long run. And since there’s no regulation or requirement in the leather care industry to list ingredients, the majority of companies manufacturing leather conditioners do not. No offense to Lexol and some of the other big brands out there that use chemical ingredients, but it kind of grosses me out to not know what sort of yucky chemicals are going on my skin as I condition my leather.
I like to know what’s in the products I use and I figured others did too, which lead me to create Colorado Leather Balm using traditional, all natural ingredients. In making CLB I started with shelf stable PH-balanced-for-leather beef tallow (the original conditioning fat of cowhide), added in lanolin oil and beeswax, and finished with leather safe essential oils that both provide antimicrobial properties as well as a pleasant scent. That’s it! An additional bonus is that Colorado Leather Balm’s ingredients are not only safe but actually beneficial for YOUR skin, too. So while you are conditioning your leather, you are also conditioning your own skin as well. Bonus!
I hope my review of Atitlan Victorian Lace Up Boots as well as my description of Colorado Leather Balm has been helpful, and if you’ve been on the fence about getting a pair, maybe my story will convince you how worth it they are to purchase.