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What is there to say about these?
Whilst it’s true that Steve McQueen wore Playtime chukkas (and in the early days, low tops) he never wore these monstrosities. How do we know that?
Well, first of all you only have to look at the photos and stills from his movies. He’s wearing the Hutton Playtime with its sleek profile.
The company that makes these have licensed the name from the McQueen Estate, who sadly don’t seem to know anything about the history of Steve and his chukkas.
And I can guarantee something – Steve would never have worn boots with his or anyone else’s name badly stamped on the heel strip.
Incidentally, that strip should not even be there, but despite the relatively high cost these Frankenstein boots are made up from a lot of smaller pieces. This keeps the cost of manufacture down to a minimum. These are so cheapened that the tongue is not even a single piece with the vamp (the front part of a shoe), rather they have an ugly seam that shows through the laces.
Quite hideous.
Spot The Difference
Hutton Playtime never had a seam down the back, they were and still are, made from a single piece upper of the finest reverse calf and they, are of course, unlined. Chukka boots should be soft and comfortable so there is no reason at all for lining them and making them heavier and stiffer than they need to be.
As worn by a World famous actor!
Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster
I once bought a pair of shoes from this company, from a hipster store in Copenhagen. I really don’t know why I did it. They were like wearing wellington boots in mud, if you’ve ever experienced that.
Later, I bought a pair of the chukkas online. I don’t know why I expected them to be better, but, they turned out to be ginger and not tobacco colored like Steve wore. And heavy!
In fact they were so bad, that I never wore them and instead dumped them on ebay. It was partly this experience that led me to encourage Hutton of Northampton to reissue the Playtime, made correctly from the best materials.
I doubt very much whether any readers of this blog would be confused by, or convinced by the cartoon Frankenboots with McQueen’s moniker stamped on them in TWO places.
Disclaimer – I AM Biased!
Now, some of you might think I’m biased but yes that’s true. I am.
Because it was precisely for this reason of endless abominations claiming lineage with McQueen’s actual boots that I happily took part in the reissue of the Playtime with Hutton of Northampton. My ADHD forces me to not accept half measures or also rans – I need things to be correct.
Before the Hutton Playtime reissue we had this kind of rubbish
‘British Walkers’ an Amazon US staple even during the fallow years with few options
We can see where the stamp influence came from!
And the dodgy rear seam.
History Re-Written?
Interesting to see that the Danish company who make these chukkas have edited their history on their website and removed references that confirm that Hutton of Northampton made the originals since 1936. They’ve even altered their logo for these boots.
Interesting how this ‘story’ is no longer their ‘official’ version.
WayBackMachine 21.09.20
Kind of sad…
And it’s very sad to see the McQueen Foundation signing off on this dreck especially when you compare it to the Persol models from a decade ago that were close replicas of McQueen’s glasses. But as far as boots are concerned there was and is only one correct Playtime. And we know which one that is, don’t we?
Just because it’s not fair to Steve to associate his memory with these bizarre boots, here are some images for you to compare.
I’m not here to shill for anyone, not even Hutton besides you can always Google them. I just get angry because I’m passionate about certain things. Playtime has one of those for since the 1980s.
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