Desert Boots - An Overview

Desert boots are popular for soldiers who work in the desert.  In the 1990s they became very popular because of Desert Storm.  A company called Clarks even made an everyday version. Both desert boots are tan, one is more for work than the other, but both remain popular.

Desert boots have a number of specific design features that make them useful in a desert setting. First of all they're high. Sand in the shoe can be very dangerous in a desert or anywhere someone has to do a lot of walking. It can lead to blisters, or even a kind of fungus. The military style boot allows pants to be tucked into the neck so that sand doesn't make its way into the boot. The boots are also well insulated which is important during desert nights, when temperatures can be cold. But it's also important to insulate against the dry heat when the sun is beating down on people.

The book series "Dune" had a science fiction take on an improvement to standard boots. These were the stillsuit boots that had all the features of real desert boots and more. In these books a stillsuit was cooled by pumping the wearers own sweat throughout the system. The boots contained pumps in the heel that performed this function. The pumps were powered by the person's own walking motion. That's pretty clever, but there's nothing like that yet in the real world.

Now onto those Clark Desert Boots, usually called Clarks. No soldier would wear these on duty. In fact no working person would or could wear these on the job. They're made for look and recreation, not for function. They were an effort to convert the popular boot and jeans look from the 70's into something that could work in an office setting or for a casual night on the town. For Clarks it was mission accomplished. Many people like the stylish look of these boots. And they can at least pretend to be doing something useful.

No soldier would have thought of all the uses and possibilities of his boots when he first placed them on his feet. There would be even less thought about it after a long march in the heat. But it was these soldiers who brought back the idea of wearing desert boots. It caught on and took off from there.

So in a way it was soldiers who brought desert boots from the battlefield into the fashion world.