page_title: Chukka boot
section_title: Desert boot
hierarchical_section_title: Chukka boot / Desert boot
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of Clarks Desert Boot in Sand Suede. Uploaded May 2014.
context_page_description: Chukka boots are ankle-high leather boots with suede or leather uppers, leather or rubber soles, and open lacing with two or three pairs of eyelets. The name chukka possibly comes from the game of polo, where a chukka is a period of play.
  Generally, "chukka boot" refers to a form of desert boots originally worn by British soldiers in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II.
context_section_description: A desert boot is a chukka boot with crepe rubber soles and, typically, suede uppers. Desert boots were popularized in the 1950s by UK shoe company C. & J. Clark.
  Desert boots were officially introduced to the world with the debut of the Clarks' Desert Boot at the 1949 Chicago Shoe Fair. After feature coverage in Esquire magazine, their popularity took off. According to Clarks, inspiration came from "the crepe-soled, rough suede boots made in Cairo's Khan el-Khalili bazaar for British Eighth Army officers."
  These boots were based on the South African veldskoen which became a popular footwear item in Southern Africa due to their robust and simple design. Often being bought by soldiers for use in the various bush wars of the region, they have become popular across the world as "desert boots".
  The year was 1941, and the soldier, well he wasn't just any infantryman, he was Nathan Clark, and he'd been sent to war with two missions. First and foremost to protect his country, and, secondly, to discover some new shoe designs for his family's company. As a member of the Eighth Army, Clark had been deployed to Burma, and it was here that he noticed that the officers in his formation were wearing these strange, sand colored chukkas during their downtime. Clark investigated the shoes and learned that they had originally been commissioned to Cairo cobblers by South African soldiers whose old-military issue boots had failed them out on the desert terrain. They wanted something that was both lightweight and grippy which led to creation of a boot with a suede upper on a crepe sole.
  — Jake Gallagher, GQ, August 15, 2012
caption: Clarks' Desert Boot
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