I remembered seeing this thread a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to follow up on it.
I saw these boots in the shoe store today. I thought the pictures of them looked somewhat dated, so I was surprised at how nice they looked in person. In fact, the leather is very high quality. This is what made me notice them in the store. They really looked more expensive than the other boots on nearby shelves. They were on clearance so I decided to try them on.
I am 5' tall and have 15" calves. They came up about an inch or two below my knees, a nice lengthening height for me. I was afraid that they would come right to my knee. That always looks kind of awkward, but that was not the case with these boots. I had to unbuckle them to get them over my calves. This wasn't a problem, just an extra step. I could buckle them on the last hole and there was still room to poke another hole or two without having them look too tight.
The first thing I noticed was how small they fit. I normally wear a 5.5/6, but I had to size up to 6.5 with these. Even with the larger size my toes still felt somewhat constricted. The footbed was also hard as a rock with absolutely no padding. I would have to put in Dr. Scholl's insoles if I was going to wear them for more than 5 minutes.
They had a pleasing silhouette from the side. I could already imagine wearing these with skinny's or skirts. But when I turned to face forward, I noticed that the buckle area didn't lay flat because of my 15" calves. This made my calves look even bigger than they are. Unfortunately that was a deal breaker for me.
Good luck in your quest for boots! I am still looking!
