These are the only footwear I wore to my job as a high school English teacher during the dome. On more than one occasion I got the opportunity to explain ordering from Onderhoud or how the dome works to a bunch of high school kids. Those conversations were definitely interesting! Seriously though, making a plan for my dome pair was important to me since the last two Domes I’ve gotten burned out in the pair at some point during the competition. By dedicating these to the work week I gave myself an opening to wear other pairs on weekends.
This leather requires zero break in and darkens pretty quickly. It started as quite orangey and ended up a much darker shade of red-brown. The leather does crease easily, especially since these are unstructured. I hit them with some Bick 4 at the end of 6 months but the leather has needed very little care so far.
Initially, I was not a fan of this last as it looked pretty blobby but once they settled in and the toes started to collapse, they took a much more interesting shape. In general, this last is pretty voluminous which concerned me until I learned it worked best with my vast collection of darn Tough socks. With thinner socks there was just too much volume. The good news is I love DT socks and would probably have worn them anyway. I never once got tired of wearing these and they were comfortable from day 1. I took them Boot Camp as my only footwear early on and had zero issues.
Finishing and QC have been top notch. No complaints!
Hard wearing, comfortable and plenty of traction through a New England winter.
Working with Rizky has been great and I’m looking forward to picking up another pair from him in the future.