Lol I nail varnish my docs. I wear them usually with dresses and skirts in winter/autumn, not so much in summer.

Right, this is very heartening folks. Just one other question. What is ‘dubbin’ and where do I get it from?
Ta very much.
w.w.

i had a pair of black DM’s that i wore until they fell to pieces….i didn’t even give up on them when my puppy chewed the tongues out one day!! This year i decided to treat myself to the red pair i always wanted and could never afford, but i don’t remember them being this hard to break in!

dubbin is a polish…...if i recall we always used to use Chelsea Dubbin which we got from the Army and Navy Stores.

Ta very much for the tip.
w.w.

If it helps, I normally get dubbin from the local smallish shoe shop, it feeds and helps keep leather supple a bit more than normal polish.  It helps with the breaking in period, I don’t remember docs being difficult to break in until a few years ago

sarie

There was a thread that mentioned Docs on here a little while ago.
We were discussing the changes in quality in recent years. Someone said that they are made out of the country now and have been for the last few years.

Maybe the change in leather explains why they are harder to break in?

Helen xxx

Yes, I doubt whether they’re fairly traded come to think of it, does anyone know? They are durable though, aren’t they,
which is an argument. My sandals are from ‘Green Shoes’ and they’ll last donkey’s years.

Thanks for all this info people.

w.w.

I don’t know about the quality of recent ones as all of mine are quite a few years old.  To hold my hands up as well I did buy a few pairs from TKmax for about £9 quid.  It’;s not ideal as I don’t really like shopping in places like that but I couldn’t resist docs at that price. I don’t know if they are fairly traded either but again I go for the argument that I can’t afford some of the other more green options and I do know that the docs will last for years and that I’ll wear them until they do fall apart .

This is from the DM website about their social responsibilities:

“At Dr. Martens we believe it is just as important to choose our suppliers for their fair treatment of their employees as for their performance on cost, delivery and quality.

And yet we don‚Äôt believe in audits that just tick boxes and demand immediate compliance.  Our research shows that this approach can force bad practices underground, leading to false documentation and ‚Äúcoached‚Äù workers. We prefer not just that factories ‚Äúpass‚Äù audits but that conditions for the workers actually improve.

We encourage, therefore, an honest dialogue with our suppliers. We understand that sometimes it is just not possible for them to comply with all aspects of our code of conduct straight away.  But we do expect any critical issues to be remedied immediately and other issues are resolved as part of a long-term improvement plan.  We do not work with suppliers who do not demonstrate commitment to our approach.

Where we do conduct audits of our suppliers it is in conjunction with Impactt who are an independent 3rd party company specialising in supply-chain ethics.  Our audits are very thorough and include physical appraisal of all work and domestic facilities, a review of documents, and management and worker interviews.

Our attention to ethical issues in our suppliers‚Äô factories is on going.  We focus on implementing improvements by ensuring that key issues are dealt with by the people who are actually responsible for making the changes. As well as Corporate Social Responsibility, we assess our suppliers, of course, for their performance on cost, quality and delivery and this information is published in a ‚Äúbalanced scorecard‚Äù to give us an overall measure on how each supplier is doing.“

You can also download their full code of ethics from their website.

That’s useful to know, isn’t it? Thanks Julysea.
w.w.