A Truly Perfect Match

These boots have seen a lot of wear the last six months. I work on my feet and walk a lot, I averaged right at 6 miles a day per wear for a total of 859 miles in the six months of the competition. I would occasionally go on light hikes in them to see the surrounding marshland we have here in southeast Texas. My biggest passion in life is dancing and during the thunderdome I went dancing 45 times in these boots, and with a total of 143 wears, this means roughly 30% of my wears involved dancing at some point. And they danced and walked of course here locally, but also saw trips to New York City and Japan! In my two weeks in Japan they had well over 100 miles of wear, 4 salsa nights, and countless memories made there. They hiked along a rocky shore in Wakayama, crossed through the Shibuya scramble, climbed hundreds of flights of stairs, drunkenly walked through Golden Gai and Dotonburi, ran 6 miles through the rain when I missed the train back to my hotel from Shinjuku to Nippori. These boots and I lived and experienced so much, and they handled it all incredibly well.

This was my first experience with a teacore leather and it has been incredible to see the evolution in this leather. The changes began quick with scuffs on the heels revealing the brown undertones coming through the black surface. With more wear the brown came through all over the boots, especially along the creases in the ankle from constantly being flexed back and forth. The leather was fairly soft and flexible from the start and collapsed down to mould around my foot quickly. Never once did I get a blister from breaking in these boots. For care I conditioned with an Indonesian made leather balm, Dokkan leather balm, which came with the boots. It worked incredibly well, and has kept the leather very healthy. I conditioned them 3 times due to how much wear they got, plus my area is rather rainy which tends to really suck the moisture out of my boots. I brushed and wiped down as needed to remove dirt and grime. Overall this leather was fantastic, and I am glad it is what I chose for these incredible boots.

This fit on these boots was spectacular, I have very low volume feet but these boots felt made for my feet with how snug my foot felt in all the right places like the heel and instep, but with room for my toes to spread and not feel crushed. I took these as a 9.5 brannock, both HTT and HTB, at a size of 42.5 which correlates to a 9.5 on Fortis’ sizing chart so they are TTS. Very satisfied with the fit on these.

The Antasena is a beautiful boot, and Fortis is rather willing to make some slight changes to accommodate preferences as well. The standard model features a pull tab and typically a block or woodsman heel, but they allowed me to have the pull tab removed and a Cuban heel done instead. This took an already amazing looking pattern to me and elevated it in my opinion to better fit what I like. The wholecut design allows the leather to really shine and develop some beautiful rolls, creases, and patina. The stitch work was phenomenal, never really noticed anything out of place on them. The original soles were blind stitched and had a custom paint job on them, which was incredibly well executed by Fortis. I did however, due to how much I walked and danced in them, need to get a resole done 3 months in. A big thank you to my friend David Corey, a fellow domer and a talented boot maker, of Oldspeed MFG for getting that resole done in such a short time frame. I think the blind stitching on the sole contributed to a slightly earlier need for a resole, but most people who get a pair of leather soled boots/shoes with blind stitching are not going to be putting their boots/shoes through remotely the same level of wear that I put these through so I do not fault the craftsmanship or quality of materials used by Fortis for this at all. Overall, I absolutely adore these boots, their design, craftsmanship, honestly just everything about them.

I absolutely love leather soles! I find them to be incredibly comfortable, and as a person who loves to dance, they are perfect for hitting the dance floor! There is some sacrifice in traction, especially in icy conditions, but living in southeast Texas that’s not much an issue for me. As mentioned in a prior part of my review, these boots did require a resole, once again thank you to David Corey of Oldspeed MFG for getting that done for me, but I put these through an extreme amount of wear in a short period of time, having at the time of resole nearly 500 miles and about 25 salsa nights with hours of dancing on them each night put onto those soles. And most of the sole was still in good shape, but it was specifically the part where I pivot at my feet when dancing that got very thin. This is a problem most people will never really deal with, so I cannot fault the materials and craftsmanship here at all. I love leather soles, and I’m glad I got them on these boots.

This heel has been fantastic, gives good grip, has been incredibly durable, and looks nice and simple. It’s been a perfect match for the leather soles on these boots! Not much else to say, it’s a common option these days for a reason!

I’ve gushed a lot about these boots already, they have been an incredible pair to go through this competition with, and will continue to likely be my most reach for pair for the foreseeable future. They have been a perfect match for my lifestyle, easy to put on in a hurry, can handle everything I throw at it from a 16 mile day walking across Tokyo, a 12 hour shift being on concrete, or a night spent dancing until the wee hours morning. I loved my engineer boots from Fortis that I wore last year for the dome, and those will forever be so special to me as I won the entire competition with them, but these sidezips they made for me this year? I love them even more. I’ve made so many incredible memories in them, and I’m going to keep on living my life and creating more stories to tell with these on my feet to carry me there.