Stuart Leather Chelsea Boots — Brown, US 12 / EU 45

Tom Ford's footwear is the most conservative corner of a house built on theatrical glamour, and the Stuart complicates that: a dress Chelsea set on a lugged rubber sole. Ford's contribution is not to redesign the form, a boot cut for the stirrup in the nineteenth century and adopted by the Beatles a hundred years later, but to build it in a calf finished to a gloss the category rarely bothers with and then put it on an outsole made for pavement rather than carpet.

The upper is smooth brown calf, polished so the colour sits deep and even across the toe rather than burnished pale at the edges, with black elasticated side gussets in polyamide and elastane that frame the shaft in quiet contrast to the brown. Inside, the lining is a natural tan calf, unstained, which keeps the interior cool and shows the construction honestly. The upper is welted, the stitch line running visibly around the edge, onto a lugged rubber outsole with a low stacked heel stamped TF at the side; the underside carries TOM FORD and Made in Italy. Reference J1073R-LCL020, colour U7004.

It reads as a dress boot that refuses to be precious about the ground: the polish and the clean, uninterrupted vamp belong under tailoring, while the lug sole and the gusset handle everything that happens between the car and the door. That is the point of the Stuart, a Chelsea formal enough for a suit and built to be walked in. Size US 12 (EU 45 / UK 11).