Has Frye's time returned? You can bet your boots

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One of Frye's most famous boots is called the Harness. If you're over 40, you know the one, even if you don't know you know. Rugged leather, squared toe, a simple belt around the ankle. It was created in the 19th century and became a huge fad in the late 1960s, but you needn't go to a museum to see this boot today: It's flying off the shelves of Nordstrom and Zappos.

Keep your eyes peeled and you'll see the Harness, the Engineer and other classic Frye boots on the streets of Chicago, New York and London this summer. In this, the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, Frye boots are back like a blast from the past. Their comeback is a telling sign of the times.

Frye boots' previous heyday was the first time the brand, founded in 1863, became a fashion icon. For women, they represented a new combination of strength and hipness. Wide-toed and heavy, they were a bold reaction against a period of restrictive femininity: housewives vacuuming in heels.

Claudia Goldin hitched herself to a pair of Fryes in the 1970s and stomped around the West Village with her tight jeans tucked into the bootlegs. Now a well-known labor and history economist at Harvard University, she welcomes their return. Fryes, she says, "say strength."

With the benefit of hindsight, we can safely say that the 1970s woman used Fryes to look more liberated than she was. The woman-behind-the-man habits persisted for some time. Still, the boots exemplified the effort of forging past the 1950s into a stronger, more confident era.

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The Engineer

Though they remained popular into the '70s, Frye boots are so closely tied to the image of the '60s that they are on display at the Smithsonian as an emblem of those years. But there are also some ways in which their aura - earthy, utilitarian and anti-fashion - fits the current times, too.

In fashion, we're coming off a similar period of femininity. Our feet ache from the Manolo Blahniks that we've been wearing to work.

Politically, when Fryes were last in fashion, it was a period of unsurpassed idealism, unrest over an unpopular war and a president who was out of favor. Today, the political winds are blowing in some similar directions.

"I really believe there's a strong societal connection between 2007 and the 1970s," says Leslie Schnur, a 52-year-old New York author who owned a pair of Harness boots in the 1970s, when she attended Berkeley. Jeannie, the heroine of Schnur's latest novel, "Late Night Talking," clomps through Schnur's book in a pair of Fryes.

For most wearers, Frye boots are about the freedom to blow off fashion's dictums. They are rebellious and, at the same time, in touch with the earth and a certain cowboy reality.

Frye was founded by John A. Frye in 1863. An enterprising boot maker from England, Frye managed to sell to both the Yankees and the Rebels during the Civil War. The company maintained its utilitarian customer base for decades, putting boots on pioneers who crossed the West, on soldiers in the Spanish American war, on Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, on General Patton. In 1998, Frye was bought by Jimlar Corp., a footwear company based in Great Neck, N.Y.

After the heady rush of their 1970s popularity, Frye boots were left to their cowboy and motorcycle stalwarts for a quarter-century or so. Three years ago, actress Sarah Jessica Parker helped bring them back after being seen in a pair of Fryes.

Now, Fryes are back in force: the Campus boot, the 19th-century design favored by pioneers and renamed in the 1970s to reflect its popularity among college students; the Engineer; the Harness boot, the Cavalry. There are newer versions, but it's the 140-year-old styles that resonate.

Stephanie Maniscalco, proprietor of the online vintage purveyor Pretty Baby Vintage in Texas, can't find enough vintage Fryes to sell. "They can bring an outfit down if it's too frilly," she says. Again, the message is jarring and rebellious.

And there you have it. Fryes aren't just an emblem of geopolitical unrest. They're a response to fashion unrest, as well.

Perhaps, like the culinary trend toward "slow food" - healthier and more flavorful - consumers yearn for slower fashion. David Wolfe, creative director at Doneger Group retail consultants, believes the industry's fast-fashion frenzy may be inadvertently driving people into Frye boots and items like Converse sneakers that feel more substantial.

"I think we're in fashion burnout," Wolfe says. "We're looking for things that are so out of fashion, they're cool."

So now, a whole new generation is finding an alternative in Frye boots. Lauren Goodman, the 31-year-old fashion director at Domino Magazine, counts herself a "huge fan." "We're all so into chasing trends," she says. "It's great that we have H&M and Forever 21, but they're here today and gone tomorrow. It's nice to have something with legacy."

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