Desert classic

Even though many ascribe the invention of this British classic to Nathan Clark, who in 1949 designed a boot that was based on an item that officers of the British Eighth Army had made for them by local Egyptian tradesmen during the Second World War, its roots actually lie in India, along with the jodhpur and the khaki trouser.

Initially, this traditionally two-eyelet suede boot was named the ‘chukka boot' after the playing period in polo and, often unlined and fitted with a rubber or leather sole, had been brought back to the UK by the British Raj from the Thirties on and was worn by rather louche Bohemians clad in corduroy. When such men were stationed in climates far too severe for the Brit army boot, they had their faithful chukkas copied in Cairo's Old Bazaar. The result was the roughly fashioned crepe-soled suede boots which they wore off duty. And, as with the history of any garment which is copied, what gets lost or added in translation becomes the norm and forms the blueprint for another slightly different, and at times equally iconic, style.

It was this boot which Nathan Clark (of the famed British shoemakers, Clarks) brought back from Burma where he'd been stationed with the West African Brigade in the late Forties. Consequently, he set about perfecting the Clarks Desert Boot. In 1950 Clark unveiled it at the Chicago shoe fair and sales rocketed.

Of course the boot ticked all the relevant boxes for early Fifties hipsters. Their soft no-nonsense structure was perfectly aligned with the free-thinking jazz ideology of the day and paired with jeans and sweatshirts became, along with open-toed sandals and loafers, the chosen footwear for jazzers, beat poets and writers such as Jack Kerouac and his hero Neal Cassady.

Over in the UK middle-class traditional jazzers and later beatniks — who added the obligatory Aran jumper, beard and duffle coat — initially championed the boot. They met in the 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho and went on peace marches holding their Ban The Bomb banners high.

As a result the item became associated with a certain breed of Existentialists and it was this, coupled with the opening of the first Clarks store on Regent Street in 1957, that ensured their place in the annals of great British youth culture. The Beatles in their early days sported desert boots, as did Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, The Rolling Stones and Patrick McGoohan, star of the massively popular Danger Man series, while in Paris the Left Bank was chock-a-block with desert boot-wearing non-conformists who frequented the famed Beat Hotel. Simply, there was no other groovy casual shoe in the early Sixties.

In 1963 the shoe took an almighty leap in popularity when the Godfather of Mod Steve McQueen decided, apparently of his own volition, to wear desert boots (along with a sweatshirt, chinos and an A1 bomber jacket - all curiously military gear) in the film The Great Escape. Previously the item had been aligned with beats and dropouts - the ancestors of hippies - but now it would jump ship and grace the feet of their diametrical opposite, the Mods. Curiously, the most prominent items of the Mod portmanteau - the button-down shirt and the desert boot - were both seen as American but were both in fact taken directly from the polo field and were quintessentially British.

By the mid-Sixties the boot had lost any and all connections with polo and had conquered the high street. The chosen footwear of The Who, The Small Faces and The Animals, it was ubiquitous on UK streets. The item came full circle in 1967 when the Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Shackleton, came back from Aden wearing a pair of locally made desert boots. He returned to Aden with orders from several government ministers for pairs of desert boots.

Such governmental approval dented the boots' credibility among the youth, but what really sounded its death knell was its approbation by Marks and Spencer's, who in 1970 copied Clark's Desert Boot as part of a revamp of their men's fashion department, teaming the once proud boot with a rather sombre navy blazer, tweed trousers, a button-down shirt and a silk paisley scarf.

No longer a hep item, it was now the chosen shoe of geography teachers, hippy soundmen and middle-class dads who wanted to get down with the younger generation. And so the shoe remained a laughing stock. No one wanted them. They were a pariah. That is until the film Quadrophenia came along in 1979. Riding on the wave of the new mod revival gave the shoe yet another lease of life. Subsequently championed by the likes of Paul Weller, they once again attained the level of unimpeachable classic UK street wear - an accolade awarded to the likes of the Fred Perry, Levis 501s and the Doc Marten.

Consequently, when any band or youth movement gleans any influence from Mod culture, out comes the desert boot. Oasis, again drawing on the Sixties, influenced yet another generation of popsters who were mad for the boot. Damon Albarn is a fan, while the Arctic Monkeys are often seen padding around London in said footwear.

Today desert boots are well and truly back in vogue and are made by many manufacturers, but for my money the best versions are made by Clarks (particularly the Tobacco Suede), while well-known London shoemakers Church's Ryder III Brown Suede (as worn by James Bond in Quantum of Solace) are for those who want something a little more sturdy.

A question that often provokes heated debate is, what do you wear the desert boot with? A tried-and-tested combination is pairing them with khakis. But "Only wear desert boots with jeans or cords (the latter rarely)," the website Mod Culture advises. "You could probably wear them with khakis. But a suit and desert boots isa big no-no!"

You have been warned.