Conducting boots on the ground journalism to investigate the influx of boots at Columbia.

A new school year has begun, and hundreds of boots have materialized on campus. Everywhere you look, boots. Boots and dresses. Boots and jean shorts. On the first senior night of the year, I lost count of how many girls strutted past in mini skirts and black leather boots. Yesterday I saw a Barnard baddie with jeans tucked into the top of her brown leather knee-high boots.

It doesn’t come as a shock. Lately, boots seem to have flooded the cultural zeitgeist. It’s never been a more bootsy time. Boots the house down. Mini skirt and my go-go boots. Boots, that’s my ego boost.

A significant contributor to the general bootification is the Frye Boot revival. You can’t scroll your Depop Discover page without at least one mood board suggesting you pair an outfit with Fryes. If you’re unfamiliar with Frye & Co., it’s one of America’s most classic boot companies and was majorly popular in the 60s and 70s. Naturally, Gen Z girlies are now scrambling to purchase pairs of the classic knee-high genuine leather boots, particularly the vintage ones. Best believe Olivia Rodrigo gets paparazzied in worn vintage campus Fryes. It appears the trend has found its way onto our campus: Through careful analysis of recent boot sightings, I’ve identified a number of them as Frye & Co. or its off-brand equivalent. (And if you were wondering, yes, I just acquired my own glorious pair of Fryes.)

To evaluate campus attitudes on the boots situation, I interviewed a random sample of students, by which I mean all four of my friends. My resident performative male friend, who knows more than he should about women’s clothing, noted that the boots we’re seeing overwhelmingly belong to the category of knee-high boots. Moreover, according to him, the boots era coincides with a skirt and short Renaissance. The trend seems to be to show the entire boot in all its knee-high splendor, rather than letting only the toe poke out from under your pant cuff.

My Texan friend knows nothing about Frye boots. But, she interjected, she does have an opinion on women wearing cowboy boots out to parties: “I fucking hate it. Can’t stand it.” Her objections derive from her assessment that these girls are not taking care of the boots nor properly styling them. She particularly loathes the generic white sparkly cowboy boot, which she finds to be a gaudy, cheap caricature of the riding boots rooted in Mexican culture. So if you plan to appropriate my friend’s culture, she has some tips for you: Pair them with nice shorts or boot-cut jeans that will compliment the boots, accentuating the heel, the toe, or the entire shoe.

Whether Fryes or cowboy boots, nearly everyone seems to have a pair. Regardless of your feelings about the boots, it’s undeniable that the situation is serious. Every day their numbers increase. And it’s still summer: Imagine when fall begins… If you somehow don’t have boots already, don’t be surprised if you find them on your feet in the coming weeks. Prepare yourself now. Make sure you know how to style them. Invest in a robust pair of crew socks. The boots are coming for you.

Header via PickPik