Fifty winters of black boots, and I finally understand what my feet were missing
Six things the Quinn gets right that ankle boots get wrong, from a woman who does not review shoes.
Catharine Laurent · Customer · Dallas · 5 min read
Let me be plain about who is talking. I am Catharine, I am 68, I live in Dallas, and I have never in my life sat down to write about a pair of boots. What I have done is buy cautious black ones every winter for fifty years, the gapers, the ankle-wrestlers, the pair with the heel that turned a cobblestone into an incident. So this is not a review. It is a woman who was wrong about boots, saying so.
The pair I am writing about is called the Quinn, from Novira Dallas, a small American boutique that has been quietly making the ordinary things a bit lovelier for a few years now. I first saw them in the podiatrist’s waiting room, of all the glamorous places, and when the boutique later asked if they could put my letter up for others to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
Leopard print. With a cream and wine-red stripe down the back like a racing car. In a room full of sensible black shoes and worse. Read on.
Here is what fifty winters of boot-buying taught me. Ankle boots come in two piles. The safe pile, black, cautious, identical, chosen not to clash with anything and succeeding at nothing. And the daring pile, which we admire on other women, price up in shop windows, and never once buy, because leopard print is for somebody else.
The woman in the waiting room stood up, walked past in those heels like it was nothing, and I abandoned my dignity and asked.
The Quinn is the first pair I have owned from the second pile, and having worn them daily for a two weeks, I can tell you it comes down to six things.
The day they came. I ordered them the way one signs up for a parachute jump.
Leopard, it turns out, is a neutral
Nobody tells you this until you own some. The tan and rust and chocolate go with navy, with grey, with denim, with camel, with every coat I own, better than black does. Black disappears politely. Leopard lifts the whole outfit and takes the credit. I have worn them with my most boring pants and been asked, twice, if the whole outfit was new.
The tan, rust and chocolate in the print sit with navy, grey, denim and camel alike, which is why a leopard reads as a neutral rather than a statement once it is on your feet.
Novira DallasThe zip is at the back, and the back is the show
No wrestling your ankle into a side zip at the bottom of the stairs. The zip runs straight down the back of each boot on a cream stripe with a deep wine-red coil, so they slide on and off standing up, and from behind they look like they are doing a hundred miles an hour. Half the compliments arrive as I am walking away.
The back view. Half my compliments arrive as I am leaving.
The shaft hugs instead of gaping
The ankle part is soft and gently stretchy, so it settles round your ankle with a little scrunch instead of standing off it like a bucket. No draught, no rubbing, no sock swallowed whole by suppertime. It is the difference between wearing boots and being adjacent to them.
Soft and gently stretchy through the ankle, so it settles against you instead of standing off in a gap for the draught to find.
Novira DallasA block heel you can actually walk in
The heel is the chunky, steady sort, a couple of inches, wrapped in the same leopard with a smart black tip. It gives you the height and the posture without the wobble, and it has now done cobblestones, curbs, wet leaves and the slope outside the podiatrist’s without a single incident report.
The heel in question. Steady as a table, dressed like a party.
Cushioned for a proper morning of errands
They are cushioned underfoot, and the sole has a decent grip, so a full circuit of the farmers market, the post office line and the long way home does not end in the usual negotiation with my feet. I am not going to tell you they are slippers, they are heeled boots. But my feet have filed no complaints, and my feet are prolific filers.
Cushioned through the sole with a grippy tread, which is what makes a block heel good for a morning of errands rather than an hour of them.
Novira DallasThey retired my oldest rule
Shoes last. That was the rule, choose the outfit, then find the least-wrong boots. These have reversed it. Now the boots go on first and the outfit assembles itself around them, which mostly means plain things, which means I have simplified my whole closet by buying the least plain boots in Yorkshire. Nobody is more surprised than me.
By the door, next to the old guard. The old guard knows.
The Quinn, against the boots you have been buying
You can find black ankle boots for fifty-odd dollars anywhere. I know, because I own the evidence. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Black, cautious, identical to last year’s
Side zips that dig and gape
Shafts that stand off the ankle like buckets
Heels that treat cobblestones as an ambush
Chosen last, noticed never
Leopard that works like a neutral
Back zip on a cream racing stripe
Soft shaft that hugs with a scrunch
Steady block heel, walkable all day
Chosen first, asked about weekly
About the price
The Quinn is $62.95 at the moment, down from $125.00.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that the sale is on now across the whole colorful boot collection. What I can tell you from my side is that half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with something, and a two weeks of daily wear has not found it.
And I am not one to order blind, so I read the listing right through first. Eighteen pairs in the collection, the sizes printed plainly, free tracked delivery and thirty days to send them back. The six things I have just walked you through are all there in black and white on the page.
Ankles crossed in a waiting room, carrying on the tradition. Somebody asked. I told her.
If your boot cupboard is a row of black apologies and there is a waiting room, a farmers market or a christening anywhere in your future, this is the pair I would put by your door myself. Stop dithering and go and look.
Catharine
QUINN | Vibrant Zipper Ankle Boots
- Leopard print that works like a neutral
- Back zip on a cream and wine-red racing stripe
- Soft sock-style shaft that hugs the ankle
- Steady walkable block heel, about two inches
- Cushioned underfoot with a grippy sole
- Part of a whole colorful boot collection · US 5 to 10.5
- Free US delivery
Sale on now. Free tracked delivery across the US and 30 days to send it back.