THCD Photo Examples

[DWFII]

I am not posting this to diss anyone, their likes or dislikes, or in response to any particular post. I am simply trying to provide a little privileged information and background.

First, the moment you see the words "Goodyear welted" on the spec/advertising for a shoe, you must understand that the shoe is essentially held together with glue. The Goodyear welting technique is one that seeks to emulate the structure of a handwelted shoe without any of the skill, quality materials, processes or expense that make for a solid construction. Instead of a direct welt-to-upper-to-insole connection, a canvas or linen strip, called "gemming" is glued to a thin, often substandard, and sometimes even "artificial" insole. The welt and upper are then connected to the gemming by nearly automatic machines. Because the gemming is simply glued to the insole the whole shoe is, at bottom, held together with that glue.

What's more, nine times out of ten when a manufacturer decides to utilized Goodyear welting techniques, the need for, and expense of a quality leather insole is called into question. The insole only needs to be a platform for the glue that is used with the gemming. It does not have to withstand the rigours and strains of being the foundation for a solid welted technique. Any shoe that costs the customer less than $500.00 retail, has almost certainly made compromises in this regard and any shoe that costs less than $200.00 almost certainly has abandoned the use of leather for insoles altogether...going instead to leatherboard or fiberboard--a material similar in its genesis to cardboard.

When a manufacturer decides to utilize fiberboard (or leatherboard) for insoles they will almost certainly replace the more expensive leather heels with fiberboard heels. When they replace leather heels they inevitably replace leather heel stiffeners and toe stiffeners, as well.

And then the next step is to look at the cost of upper leathers. This leads to utilizing some form of "corrected grain " leather. Corrected grain leather is created when skins that are too scarred or blemished to be finished as premium, "top grain" are grain-snuffed (sanded) and an artificial top grain is then applied. Usually this consists of some sort of thin plastic overlay.

Patent leather was, historically, a "painted" leather. It is/was the ultimate "corrected grain" leather. Modern patent leather is produced by bonding a relatively heavy vinyl or plastic layer to a skin that would, in other circumstances, be rejected as waste and/or unusable.

You get what you pay for. But there is a very real element of deception on the part of manufacturers and marketeers in that they lead you to believe that the $200.00 shoe of today is the same quality as the $200.00 shoe of the early 20th century was. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The next step is to advertise their products as "faux leather." I fear, however, that there will always be people who will avidly buy into such snake-oil, defend the product as if it were their very own child...and insist that it is of a superlative, hitherto unheard-of quality. Sometimes even becoming outraged at the thought of paying more than $200.00 for a pair of shoes.