I am about to invest in a pair of Parlanti boots and was considering getting a pair of dress boots. Growing up I had always known dress boots as dressage boots…I visited a boot dealer at a show and tried on a pair (the only pair that fit, like a glove I may add) but they happened to be dress boots. She was telling me how it’s becoming the new thing. I was wondering if this is true from what everyone else has noticed. I definitely think they look very beautiful and clean without the laces and a spur strap would be a nice look over the top of the boot. Before investing I just wanted some opinions on what you all think!
Thanks!
Dress boots are always correct. Black field boots are a relatively recent invention of the horse show crowd. I cringe to see field boots and shadbellies. That’s a formal dress with sneakers to these antiquated eyes.
Agreed! I’m really leaning towards the dress boot. Great analogy :lol:
First of all, dress boots and dressage boots are two different styles of boots. Dress boots are always correct in hunter/jumper/equitation, they are just currently not quite as popular. I’m from the same era as Madeline when field boots were some shade of brown, cordovan, oxblood or tan, not black. Field boots are not formal attire.
Eh, it’s your money… get what you like. Field boots are more popular (and may offer better resale down the road, if that is a concern.) But dress boots are not incorrect, just a bit out of the ordinary.
This is a love-but-disagree with Lucassb.
A) Invest in beautiful boots that fit you and that you will wear forever. Screw what other people like. And if they are custom made for you, you’ll lose enough money on resale that I don’t think you should consider the next guy your arbiter of taste.
B) Field boots were a good-at-the-time compromise to the Elephant Ankles that were necessitated by the logic of getting a big heal through that bottleneck into the foot of a boot.
That epoch is over, thanks to zippers, so IMO, the leading edge of adaptive evolution will be toward zippered dress boots. Already, you can see zippered boots with vestigial, functionless elastic laces.
I show in the Treadstep Raphael, which is their dress boot. I love them. So much easier to wipe clean than field boots. Don’t see the point of laces now that we have zippers, and like the dressier look.
Haha mvp, not sure that we disagree! (Note I suggested buying whatever the OP likes… rather than following the herd.)
I only wish that customs still lasted forever. I adore my Tucci’s and have had many compliments on them. But I would be very surprised if they lasted more than a couple of years. (At which point I will buy another pair; did I mention I loved them?)
^^ The evolutionary trend away from field boot laces is Very Important.
Rarely does evolution happens so fast that our species can see it. It’s even more rare that we get a chance to further it in a nice/rational direction as in going toward boots that are beautiful and also easier to clean and polish.
Really, OP, before your time, well-polished dress boots set the bar, not field boots.
LOL, ^^^ both of you. Dress boots were the norm, but when you were a kid at your first horse show with your first horse and first tall boots, likely they came from the Miller’s catalog and were about the same size around from the ankle up. And it was sort of expected that your socks would show at the top. One height fits all!
Circa 1966:https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/t31.0-8/272406_2023182913636_2805961_o.jpg
Love the look of today’s dress boots.
I love dress boots. They are indeed becoming more popular again. I see lots of them these days.
It wasn’t that the boots were “one height fits all.” Fancy schmantzy custom boots were that height as well. You used garters and those went between the buttons on your breeches. Extra tall tall boots are pretty new, evolutionarily speaking.
Believe it or not, there was a time when you would be equally likely to go in the show ring naked as to use a saddle pad. Fuzzy girth covers? Not a chance. Dee ring snaffles, no way in the world. Too racetrack. At the same time, except at night or indoors you certainly wouldn’t wear a navy or black coat in the summertime, even at Devon…
I have both, but I have a boot problem 
If I could only have one, they would be dress boots.
(I have field boots with zippers and the aforementioned “fake” laces. Because they’re cute).
[QUOTE=Madeline;7707268]
It wasn’t that the boots were “one height fits all.” Fancy schmantzy custom boots were that height as well. You used garters and those went between the buttons on your breeches. Extra tall tall boots are pretty new, evolutionarily speaking.[/QUOTE]
And why was that so? Why were too-short-boots ever a useful adaptation? How much harder is it to cut them taller and with spanish tops? I mean, we’ve had the same knees, the same unflattering-uniform-made-worse-by-too-short-boots for millennia. And by the 18th century, if you had some dough, people were making very well-tailored clothing for you…… But it was OK to ride around in fugly, short boots until just about the 21st century? I don’t get it.
Dress boots (as opposed to dressage boots, which are stiff) are always perfectly appropriate in formal situations. I have a pair of Mountain Horse dress boots that I bought on a total whim because the ebay auction was ending in three minutes and they were $36, which to me is a perfect reason to buy tall boots (ignore how dirty they are, that was the schooling ring and it was a mud fest). I kind of figured that the worst that would happen was if I wound up reselling them, they’d certainly hold their value of $36.
For me the greater concern is the general shape of the boots - I want them to be flattering at the top and around the ankles - than whether or not they have laces. If they fit perfectly, no one is going to notice what style they are, nor care.
I too have a boot problem. It’s called “sometimes I look at ebay auctions when I shouldn’t but you can’t argue with $41 brown vogels.”
[QUOTE=mvp;7707477]
And why was that so? Why were too-short-boots ever a useful adaptation? How much harder is it to cut them taller and with spanish tops? I mean, we’ve had the same knees, the same unflattering-uniform-made-worse-by-too-short-boots for millennia. And by the 18th century, if you had some dough, people were making very well-tailored clothing for you…… But it was OK to ride around in fugly, short boots until just about the 21st century? I don’t get it.[/QUOTE]
Tradition is a bitch.
[QUOTE=mvp;7707477]
And why was that so? Why were too-short-boots ever a useful adaptation? How much harder is it to cut them taller and with spanish tops? I mean, we’ve had the same knees, the same unflattering-uniform-made-worse-by-too-short-boots for millennia. And by the 18th century, if you had some dough, people were making very well-tailored clothing for you…… But it was OK to ride around in fugly, short boots until just about the 21st century? I don’t get it.[/QUOTE]
I guess boots were short because the garters had to fit between the buttons of our breeches. In case you are too young to remember, the buttons were on the seam just below our knees. And now most breeches don’t have those seams either lol. I have gorgeous custom Dehners from those days that I would never wear today because they are just too short and a higher boot is just so much more attractive and flattering. I don’t think breeches have had buttons since the late sixties so it took quite a while before the trend for taller boots came into vogue but it’s definitely an improvement.
Does anyone find themselves just a bit toooo neurotic about the height of fashion boots? Since I’m constantly trying to make sure my riding boots are tall enough, fashion boots kind of make me crazy.
Tradition isn’t a bitch, nor is it the end-all, be-all- it is just what people did at a particular point in time. Sometimes things are ok if they evolve and change, and sometimes not so much. I used to be all anti and crazy about zipper boots and pearl clutchy and I would never wear them and blah blah blah- until I tried a pair and thought: Hey! These are nice! And I don’t have to have two other people to help me get them off!
Anyway, when I was a kid we all wore dress boots. Field boots were weird. They were the things that the newby hunter guy who didn’t really know what he was doing wore. Or someone who had broken her ankle and needed extra room- it was ok for her, but everyone else had lovely custom dress boots that were horribly painful until they broke in and dropped enough that you could walk normally in them. At some point in the 1990s field boots became the thing to wear. I wish I had bucked the fashion for dress boots then- getting into my Dehners, with my high arches, required baby powder and plastic bags, and getting out required a strong back to help me. It sucked. I still have nerve damage from those boots, but they looked nice! :lol:
ETA: I have a friend who is passionate about older houses, which is great. We have a 1930 four square that has been renovated horribly in the past, and when we decided to take down some walls and re-renovate, he was all horrified. “But you are destroying tradition!!!” My response was that when my house was built, as a Sears kit house, many people looked on those as cheap and tacky. Time has passed and now folks think the whole kit house thing is cool, but at some point in the past my house would have been seen as a mass-produced thing that poor folks and people with no taste bought. So, who is right? I love so many things about my house, but I also like big, airy spaces, so what we have now is a wonderful (I think) mix of the past and present. Things change. It is ok!
Trixie - yes. In fact, I purchased a new pair of fashion boots just last week because I became uncomfortable that my last year’s wonderful, leather, comfortable boots were “too short”, IMO 
