like many #menswear bloggers, steve mcqueen was a major influence on my current obsession with personal style.  my first introduction to him came from his film the great escape.  a friend of mine told me he wore desert boots in the film, so i went to clarks and bought some desert boots.  it wasn’t until watching the film a second time that i realized his boots looked nothing like my clarks.  i went to the internet for answers and discovered that mcqueen’s boots in the great escape were world war ii service boots and not desert boots.  i spent the next several hours back on the internet looking for anything that resembled wwii service boots.  i found nothing…until now.  l.l. bean signature has recently released their very own version of the classic boot made with roughed out leather and a rubber soul.  they look pretty damn close to the boots in the picture above if you ask me.  time to put on your persols, fire up your triumph tr6 650, and make your own great escape (sorry i couldn’t resist).

if you’re looking for more information on some of mqueen’s other footwear choices, see my previous post on his playboy boots here.