(Many More Than) Two Years Before the Mast, The Clinch Mast Trainers

 Tuesday, November 1, 2022

 

When it comes to learning the ins and outs of the boots, jeans, jackets, and the rest that we love, makers and retailers are undoubtedly our most important resources.  But in the end all of this stuff is personal.  How it works for you will count most.  What someone else thinks about something you dig really can help you figure it out for yourself.

 

For me, clothes tell stories, conjure memories, make associations.  Clothes are a vital part of a personal mythology and, after all, myths are the lies we tell to find our deeper truths. 

I could wax on (wax off) more about how I became so obsessed with all of these made in Japan brands but that’s not today.

 

Today is about one pair of boots that are more like shoes, maybe more like sneakers or even something else.  The Clinch Mast Trainer is a “trainer” though I’m still not sure what we are training for.  Certainly they aren’t only “trainers” in the Brit sense of sneaker.  Just what are they?  In short, really comfy boots, ummm, shoes, umm, trainers.  I think I know now why I could not resist them.

I promised not to do this but just a word about their maker.  

Offerings from The Brass Shoe Co., Tokyo, Clinch boots never seem to last more than a few hours minutes after they drop. Renown for exquisite craftsmanship and particularly striking design details, the Clinch aesthetic is unmistakable, quite set apart even from its impressive peers in the world of heritage and handmade.  

 

There’s plenty written elsewhere about The Brass Shoe Co. and its proprietor Mr Matsuura.  Their website (likely well known to you) and YouTube clips articulate a genuine vision while the social media provides all of the evidence.  What I hear when Mr Matsuura speaks about his work is his authentic commitment to make shoes that will fit wonderfully, get better with use and can be repaired again and again.  His modesty reminds us of Dogen, perhaps the most accomplished of the Zen philosophers, who once wrote that the seeker must not seek enlightenment but all the same must seek enlightenment. 

 

A pair of Clinch will evolve with use in ways both predictable and personal.  In other words, Clinch understands how their well-worn boots will change.  Perhaps they even how they are supposed to change.   And there is also the simultaneous expectation that every pair will become distinctive.  These boots will remain as they were from the outset---utterly distinctive, identifiable as Clinch---but also become something wholly personal, individual, one’s own.  How many things in our lives are like that?

 

I began my own Clinch “journey” in a pair of redoubtable Engineers and, frankly, haven’t been able to look away since.  My most recent purchase is the more unusual Mast Trainer, a boot I thought would never make my list.  It was not love at first sight.  I had to grow into the look but something about them made me return again and again.  It took my present self awhile to figure out if they were for me. What I also had to figure out was why I was returning to have a gander.  Just what about them was so runic to my soul?

Seeing other folks sport them helped, of course, with the practical matter of wearing them.  I wasn’t sure this was my jam but like I said these boots conjured and evoked.  Something about them summoned a personal past.

Then I realized.  The Mast Trainers make me think about certain shoes from my ‘60s childhood.  At first sight I caught a faint whiff of  Converse Hi-Top Allstars, especially with the version that comes in canvas and brown leather trim.  But when I saw the all leather black version, I really got the vibe.  The Mast Trainers started to look more like some very cool high-top bowling shoes circa 1968.  I had sorta'kinda' seen them before.

 

Here are a couple of examples.  These being vintage 60s on Etsy.

 

 

And these on Ebay:

 

They are also vaguely reminiscent of road cycling shoes of the same era but those would have never come as hi-tops.

 

So this is more of what I had in mind:

 

I grew up in a neighborhood with a local bowling alley.  Not a strip mall down the road, but a bowling alley on the street that had houses on both sides.  Go figure.

 

This is a drawing of the actual place circa 1948.  Now tha was beforte my time but you get the idea.  It was called a recreation center before there were recreation centers.  But I'm tellin' ya', this was a bowling alley.

 

This was also the very place used in Miller Lite Beer commericals in the 80s where the two teams of celebrities argued over it tastes great or it's less filling.  I’m pretty sure Rodney Dangerfield and John Madden were in town for this one but I can’t swear to it.  For sure they went bowling at my hometown alley.  It was called Feibel’s.

Now when we locals went to Feibel’s we had to rent shoes, which were stylishly two-tone or more, and so had an additional clown-effect too.  Here’s some that are those those some.

 

 

It may not sound terribly flattering to say clownish styled bowling shoes but I assure you they were not only efficacious on those hardwood alley floors, they were strangely, mysteriously badass.  The heel counters on the ones at Feibel’s had the number size sewn in large leather letters in contrasting color. Finding a pair for a day of knocking pins was part of the ritual of going to the alley. Wearing those shoes was definitely part of the fun.

 

I’d still wear these if I could find the right pair.

 

Of course bowling shoes worn by countless patrons and had a certain...provenance? Let us say the shoes were redolent with storied days and nights of ten pins.  They had smooth soles they made love with the grooves of the hardwood floors.  You slid on delivery with Ginger Rogers's aplomb; it felt like dancing backwards in high heels but instead, you know, you were bowling.  Of course, when the real bowling pros came to play they brought their own shoes and these were made to hug feet and ankles, like ballet or wrestling shoes.  Yeah, that was it, wrestling shoes. 
Think of ones like these:

Or perhaps like we see on this beauty from women’s professional wrestling?

It took me a while to hit on how the Mast Trainers remind me of old school wrestling shoes, the kind that were still de rigeur in the middle '70s  Most of my pals on the team wanted the old ones that the school had kept around from the 50s.

Gotta say, wrestling was definitely not my jam.  Wrestlers---the real kind, the kind that you knew in high school or see at the Olympics or even in college nowadays, not this other stuff we see on cable channels---those cats are a different breed of cool.   I admire them for their sport and for their cool, in a sweaty sorta' way.  But I wanted nothing of what they loved.  Those shoes were somehow very cool.  Snug, soft leather, hi-tops, laced top to toe like monkey boots, and with soles that could flex and push against Naugahyde-esque (or maybe just vinyl plastic) mats.

The Mast Trainers do much of that.  But with inimitable style.  The leather is exquisitely soft and conforming throughout the boot.  Every bit of the fit feels more like a leather sock.   It’s  the next layer of your own skin rather than a shoe.

When you pull on the Mast Trainer you have a clear sense of the boot's structure, especially in the heel.  There's nothing floppy or limp going on but unlike other Clinch, which make you feel rooted, these make you feel taut.  With all Clinch there is a decided "thunk" when your foot lands whole inside.  As soft as this boot is, it does the same thing.  The overall fit evokes the intimacy of a perfect bespoke calfskin Oxford that becomes the shape of your foot because it is the shape of your foot.  But the Mast Trainer is a very soft sometimes squeaky leather, noisy when new and more like an unlined glove that wrinkles and creaks and folds.  The stitching makes them look like they are moving even when just sitting still.  (Look at the last photo below.)

They fit absolutely nothing like a Chuck Taylor even if they evoke something of that early '50s hi-top coolness.  Maybe I am era-identifying because all of my associations with the Mast Trainer take me back to that time and now, come to think of it, the sight of Muhammad Ali dancing around the ring roping his next dope, and wearing some mighty fine looking full-laced trainers.  Bowling and wrestling shoes, now boxing trainers?  All made with real purposes and uses in mind, right?

 

The Mast Trainers strike me as far more homely and easeful than any of those purpose-driven rigs, more downright cozy but no less dangerous.  They aren't merely slippers even if they feel like slippers.  Most definitely suited to being outside, walking streets and staying out of too much wet or slush.  The leather is too vulnerable for real rain or snow but there is enough support for a full day on your feet, even walking block after block on Manhattan sidewalks.

I confess I like to wear them just ‘cause they feel so good and while I might prefer a more solid, grounded boot for trundling about, these are trainers in the same way we’d think of leather lightweight sneakers.  They aren’t nearly as tall as the real Ali’s trainers and they don't come with a matching tassel but you could do that if you wanted.

There’s another unfair comparison because the Mast Trainers are exquisitely made, the details of stitching, eyelets, last all come together in a beautifully coherent, thorough way.  And their fit is so right it really feels like only bespoke usually feels but think about the lightest, sweetest Tai-Chi-like Onitsukas or those soft, super thin-soled Pumas that used to double as driving shoes.  

 

These are sneakers so light you barely feel them and with soles so soft you feel the ground, the accelerator.  They also have a 1968 Olympics vibe.  But like I said, there’s really no comparison except you could do T’ai Chi in your Mast Trainers and look exceptionally cool in the meantime.

 

The Mast Trainers have far more support than any of these other examples and despite its extremely flexible sole, I find them both stabilizing and easy on my tender, old feet when walking on concrete.  You really can wear these all day and not know you are wearing shoes at all, in a good way. 

 

I try not to make too many undisguised sartorial statements but you can’t not make a statement with the Clinch Mast Trainers.  If I can do this, so can you.   I present to you, the real deal.