Make footwear repairable again

Shoes deserve to be fixed, not thrown away

One of the reasons I called my book The World Is On Fire But We’re Still Buying Shoes is because, well, everyone loves shoes. Boots, sneakers, mules, stilettos, pumps, kitten heels, whatever — footwear has a special way of lighting up imaginations (and damaging bank accounts) in a way that you rarely see with, say, jeans. If I was to guess why, I’d say it’s because shoes are truly three-dimensional products, so there’s so much potential for interesting design. They’re intimate, too — stepping inside shoes feels more vulnerable than pulling on a t-shirt, somehow.

We are living in the age of sneakers. Times and tastes are changing, sure, but no matter how many kids you see wearing Doc Martens, the overwhelming majority of shoes sold these days are sporty and soft. There’s a lot to be said about the way we revere sneakers (as I looked at in last week’s story on sneaker hype) but the sad truth is that they are essentially disposable products. No matter how hyped your Dunks are, when they’re worn out, it’s game over. Sneaker brands aren’t in the business of repairing shoes, they’re in the business of selling new ones.

After my first ever pay rise at Highsnobiety, I bought myself a pair of Margiela Replicas, partly using a voucher I had for Oki-ni (RIP). Even with the voucher, they were expensive. I wore them to death, but the funny thing is, even when the sole had fallen apart, they still looked great. The leather and suede panels had plenty of life to them, three or four years after I bought them. Even the laces looked crisp. But no matter how well made the shoes were, once the sole was gone, they were useless. After sitting unworn in my hallway for a few years, I gave up and threw them in the trash.

It wasn’t always like this. Back in the day, shoes were real investments. The big, macho engineer boots Marlon Brando wore in The Wild One or the shiny oxfords Don Draper wore in Mad Men looked timeless, manly and classic, but they also had longevity. That’s thanks to what’s known as a Goodyear Welt, which is an old-school shoemaking technique that means shoes can be resoled by a cobbler over and over again. You can spot a Goodyear Welt by the stitched section that extends out of the edge of the sole, which creates a bigger footprint than what you’d find on something more elegant like a Gucci loafer (which can still be resoled, just not as many times). 

The Goodyear Welt is considered the gold standard of old-school shoemaking, but there’s a bunch of other techniques as well, like the Storm Welt, Norwegian Welt, Stitchdown and Blake Stitch. Whatever the method, the principle is the same — a high quality upper, usually leather, is stitched to a hard sole. The fact that the shoe is assembled by stitching makes the soles easy to repair and replace. In an age of throwaway Dunks and Chucks, there’s some enduring appeal to these kinds of shoes  — something to be worn day after day, and resoled when they start to wear out.

For people my age, who grew up in Vans and Nikes, this kind of thing feels like ancient history, and it’s not an easy category to get into. The fit of “proper” shoes is much less forgiving than sneakers, and hard soles take a lot of getting used to if you’ve spent your life in New Balances (this Reddit thread is an excellent explainer of how shoes should really fit, btw). 

But despite that, there’s growing interest in smarter, more formal shoes. Our parents grew up wearing them — they’d need a pair of brogues to wear to the office, and sneakers would be a weekend thing. Now, there’s only a handful of jobs on the planet that require formal shoes, and so sneakers have paradoxically started to feel boring and mainstream. Many shoemakers are finding that more and more young people are discovering the joys of smart shoes, although rather than dressing up like an extra from Mad Men, they’re mixing loafers with huge jeans, cropped hoodies and trashed workwear. 

As a rule, the companies making these shoes are old. Most of their designs are, let’s say, “classic”. But there’s some cool stuff out there if you know where to look, from Paraboot’s clunky walking shoes to the biker-inspired Camion boot from Our Legacy. Almost all the shoes I wear these days are resoleable in some way or another. I have my running shoes and a pair of Asics I’ll slip on every now and then, but apart from that, everything else is made the old way. My sneaker detox hasn’t been easy, but that’s a story for another time.

Despite the growing interest in the genre, traditional shoemaking is a really tough business. The profit margin is much lower than sneakers, because making shoes the old way is so slow and labor-intensive. The industry is tiny in the grand scheme of things, but the brands that are left are built on exceptional quality, deep heritage and an unwavering commitment to longevity. Nobody talks about sustainability in the space, but this kind of product has a natural longevity to it that you’ll never find in sneakers, no matter how much recycled polyester is used to make them. With care, a good pair of stitched shoes will last well over ten years. That’s a much better use of animal hide than the mountains of throwaway Air Force 1s that are sold every day.

Over the years, I’ve fallen in love with the craftsmanship (and longevity) of hand-stitched footwear. After last week’s story on sneaker hype, it felt like the right time to connect with some old-school shoemakers to get a deeper look inside their small corner of the fashion industry. In an age where everything is mass-market, where even expensive shoes are disposable, these guys deserve our attention.