Let’s review the Dr.Martens steel toe shoes and boots in this article (they certainly do have the shoes and boots without steel plate protection, but we all know that Dr.Martens is more well-known for their industrial models). We shall also talk a bit about the company, because there are some facts that can be pretty beneficial for you to know when choosing the boots of this brand.
The Dr.Martens brand owes its origins to the army doctor named Klaus Martens. In 1945 he sprained his ankle, and that is also when he found that the army boots that were available at that time were not very comfortable, so he decided to improve them, tweaking the material composition of the boots and the soles of the boots. Only after 1947, though, did the boots of his started selling – mostly to housewives, at first, but to policemen, postmen and industrial workers later. All was well, as the company started gaining a lot of recognition and fame, but approaching 2003 they realized that continuing the production of the steel toe shoes in England would be too much, so from 2003 to this day the boots are being manufactured in China.
This does bring some problems, because we all know that Chinese goods are very, well, unpredictable, to say the least. While the older models of the Dr.Martens boots were very renowned for their extreme level of comfort, durability, protection and quality in general, several recent reviews from people claim that the recent Chinese models can be quite bad. For example, some steel toe shoes of Dr.Martens don’t even last more than 6 months, and that is unacceptable for a pair of steel toe footwear that costs more than 100 bucks.
There are, however, some models of steel toe shoes of this Dr.Martensbrand that have the tag “Made in England”, and if you really can’t be bothered risking with the made in China shoes and boots then go after these premium tagged steel toe shoes. They, however, do cost a lot more – don’t be surprised if you are asked to pay twice the price of the Chinese counterpart. You also need to pay attention to what is in the product description – remember that not all Dr.Martens boots nowadays have the steel toe protection. Remember that they also have ordinary shoes and boots. Also, if you are looking for non slip shoes know that most of the Dr.Martens steel toe footwear’s soles are resistant to oily, greasy and slippery surfaces, so you basically can get two things in one package, so to speak.