Now, I’ve been waxing the likes of Visvim for a while now, always in awe of their construction, the quality and overall out-of-this-worldliness of the brand. I’d always be sat in front of a screen or standing in a shop, mouth agape, staring aimlessly at a Visvim piece. For me, it formed the upper echelon of menswear that I’d never be able to touch unless by some miracle I won the lottery, saved up until I was 30 or some twice removed super turned out grandfather knew of me and left them to me in his will.

It wasn’t until recently that I began taking note of the prices of their pieces. Colour me blown aback; my dreams of ever owning any Visvim had been dashed by numbers. It’s no secret that when it comes to Japanese brands you’re paying serious scrilla, but do you ever know for what?  I’m always looking for justification of why I spend the amount of money I do citing things like ‘it’s quality’ or ‘I need it’ (my friend Chloe’s brother, Tim, stated you never ‘need’ something especially clothes). Instead of using shallow reasoning I thought I’d annotate it and present it in the form you see above.

I won’t be spending £985 on boots anytime soon but for anyone who is trying to find some reasoning as to why they’d want to drop at least 2 months rent (shared housing) on footwear - here’s why. 

As you can see the Visvim 7 Hole ‘73-Folk is a classically styled boot with rugged construction. For your almost grand you’re obviously going to want something that isn’t going to fall apart the first few times you wear it, so to counteract this they sourced in English (British if you’re privy) cow hide suede and hand sewed it, strengthening the main body. To add to this the Goodyear welt process was used to further reinforce the boot. There’s a lot of techie stuff going on in the bottom of the boot including a Vibram outsole and a TPU heel stabiliser that’ll help maintain the health of your feet (see, these boots have health benefits), in addition to this there’s bamboo shank for shock absorption and a natural cork footbed insert. This is used to allow a memory imprint of your foot to add to the comfort, think memory foam mattresses but for your feet. There is also an EVA midsole. EVA stands for ethylene-vinyl acetate and is used in wakeskating shoes because it ‘will not crack under stress and it is not affected by UV radiation’, a perfect compliment for our very expensive Japanese boots. [x]

Stylistically, these boots have great nuanced detail that from afar don’t seem like much but up close you’ll properly appreciate. Aside from the cow hide suede construction Japanese canvas plays into the look of the boot in the form of panels. Instead of standard length laces Visvim has opted for a double length to allow you to wrap them around the upper part of the Folk’s for style and security. Finally, to put the cherry on top they’ve put in a super cool Riri zip on the inside of each boot that gives access to a further panel when zipped down.

So there you have it. A full feature to justify buying mouth-numbingly expensive boots. If you buy these and someone asks you why, show them this and it should shut them up.