Decked out for the Jubilee

My thanks to the people at Chatham Marine for making me aware of their GB 2012 deck shoes. Deck shoes tend to hover around the outskirts of what's in and out of vogue if that matters to you; what matters to me is that they're comfortable, casual and look good with jeans. I hate to over-think things.

These are going to be "in" just for this year, though. As you can see, they're coloured red, white and blue, and this is entirely because there's this Olympics happening in the same summer the Queen has her Jubilee celebrations. The soles are also coloured as you can see from the second illustration, with a full-blown Union Flag (not called the Union Jack unless it's at sea, and if Scotland pootles off as it's threatening to then it could well end up as the disunion flag - but I digress).

They're fun and attractive for the right street party occasion. They'll date before the two-year guarantee wears out, of course (I'd suggest a Tardis blue model for a 50th anniversary I happen to know of next year...look, stop staring...) and at £99 from sizes 1-9 they're not a cheapie. But they're proper deck shoes made by a company with a seafaring history, so they'll grip a wet deck properly, the eyelets won't rot and they're made of proper leather. So if you want proper deck shoes for actual decks, they'll do very nicely - although for designs less tied to a particular event you might want to check the website and consider a slightly quieter design.