It’s important to have a good pair of shoes.
Punk girls needed punk shoes, and not school shoes, plimsolls or anything dainty or flimsy with a heel. Punk girls meant business, and their footwear needed to suit that style. Joe Strummer’s useful sartorial advice about only wearing shoes that were good for fighting or running rang true, and all other counter arguments presented by say, shoe advertisers, parents, Jackie magazine or school-friend peer pressure fell on deaf ears.
However, due to the commitment, the expense and even the fear of getting it wrong (see counter arguments/peer pressure above), there was usually something of a run-up to go through first. Monkey boots were often the bridge; easily available, less expensive but still reasonably cool. With their thick black soles and soft leather uppers, they were a good alternative, but usually these were just a gateway shoe, a teaser, a taster session, and unless you backed down, they were only going to lead to one thing – mainlining your first pair of Dr Martens.
The actual first pair of Dr Martens rolled out of R.Griggs Ltd’s Northamptonshire factory in April 1960. The year previously Mr Griggs had bought the manufacturing license from Dr Klaus Märtens the inventor of the shoe, who after the war, had developed a comfortable work boot using reclaimed tyre rubber for the underside. Their new comfortable soles were apparently a big hit with the hausfraus of old Munich town, and an estimated 80% of sales in the first decade were to women over the age of 40. Griggs anglicised the name, reshaped the sole and added the distinctive yellow stitching around the rim.
Pete Townshend from the Who was an early adopter, and made certain to kit-out the Pinball Wizard, in a pantomime- sized pair for his appearance in the Who’s “Tommy”.
In the UK in the late 1970s, Dr Martens were not available in girls’ sizes and were rarely stocked in High Street retailers; you had to go to military surplus stores or even camping and outdoor shops and hope they stocked them in boys’ sizes.
No longer difficult to access, the boots are High Street staples, are now made in a host of different (similar) styles, colours and even special editions, like these “Unknown Pleasures” moulded leather ones.
I still use them (new ones tho)
I stand alone in my confusion over the apparently substantial allure of Docs. Friends of mine wore them but I could not venture there, alas. Not the look for me, I’m afraid. Now that I now about the breaking in period [!] there’s no way I’d ever put those on my feet.