By nikolanottesla • August 31, 2025"There's no need to wax poetic about Lars' (or Ostmo's) design prowess - if you're enough of a sociopath to be on this platform, you already know. And if you've handled these boots (hell, even if you've only seen them in photos), the design speaks for itself. From the last to the pattern: everything is streamlined into a beautiful final product.
The IB team nailed the execution in a lot of ways. The stitching throughout, especially on the stitchdown to the sole, is about as flawless as you could ask for. The clicking (save the tongue - I'll explain why below) and the hand-applied patina finish were handled with a level of detail I haven't seen on some boots costing twice as much as these.
That said, there are a couple of misses. The eyelets, while beautiful aesthetically, were installed in a way that mushroomed the metal on the backside of the facing - leaving sharp edges that shredded through a few pairs of laces and forced me to have the issue repaired by a local cobbler. On top of that, the right boot suffers from pretty significant tongue slide, which causes some comfort issues after longer days of wear. I can't say for sure, but it may be tied to the noticeable difference in tongue leather thickness between the right and left boots. Either way, it's a clear miss...."Read the full review
