Anyway enough procrastinating, this is my first blog for Mastershoe so go easy on me. It did get me thinking about my shoes though when I thought about what to write; you see a good quality pair of shoes will last a lifetime. Sure they’ll need repair and maintenance from time to time but that all adds to the character of your shoes, it’s what makes something unique to you in a world of mass production. I have a lovely pair of brogues at home which were custom made in Thailand for my girlfriend’s brother who has a healthy love of fashion cause them to become surplus to requirements. I love them as well, they are tan leather and they were perfect but this weather over the past few months has been relentless, my feet have got wet and I have to admit my shoes are in a pretty bad way.
What happened? Living in England wasn’t the best of starts but over the past few months they have now developed an ink stain from being in a gym bag with a pen, water marks and now the sole is also rather worn. Don’t get me wrong I can appreciate these things happen. I know I haven’t particularly cared for them how I should and I can be philosophical but I’d rather they just looked nice!
Obviously re-soling is standard practise in managing the on-going life of your shoes but it did get me wondering how you should actually care for your shoes. How do you care for them? For example you don’t just have leather anymore there’s patent leather, smooth leather, waxed leather and then you have suede and nubuck which are variations of leather and they all require different types of care. Then you have the sheepskin boots which seem to mark at the slightest contact with anything and the all elusive running shoes which seem to be permanently marked and even wellies. Do you clean your wellies? I didn’t even know you needed to care for wellies to be fair, but you can and then you have the range of care products. There are 3 or four different types of brushes you can get. You then have Gloss polish, restorative polish and dubbin. This is literally only halve of it as well so there’s no wonder people may not realise what they need.
I often get caught in a thought or an idea and once I get something in my head I find it hard to switch of, until I feel I have at least started to quench my thirst for knowledge. Did you know for example just because you bought leather boots they’re not actually waterproof leather boots unless they’re sold as waterproof or treated post purchase. Even then they only stay water proof if you continually maintain them as required. It’s sounds obvious now I think about it but until now it isn’t really anything I’ve given a lot of thought. Which is arguably part of the problem, why would you, it seems a thing of the past getting up in the morning and polishing shoes for school. Throughout my youth as a child I would only clean my shoes when they were particularly dirty and then if they started getting scuffed you just bin them and start again. It’s the same with suede shoes once they got stained I’d just stop wearing them, eventually buying a new pair and it would start all over again for the Saturday night on the town.
As a business, yes we want to make money but do we want to encourage this wastefulness? Surely it would be better helping you care for what you’ve got and then if you’ve got the spare cash in the future you can just get yourselves another pair to add to your collection. We at Mastershoe should be on hand to provide this kind of information. We should be identifying what care your shoes need, what products are worth investing in and also how to carry out this care and maintenance. Of course, doing all of this does take time and to be fair we haven’t got it ready yet but it will be soon.
In the meantime here’s a little treat for you, I was going to put about how to care for your Sheepskin Boots but men don’t have those, so… I decided I’ll tell you how to keep the waterproof stuff waterproof and if you don’t have anything waterproof the it’ll keep what you do have in the best possible condition. Just remember, look after your footwear ‘cause shoes have feelings too!
Waterproofing your footwear
Water and salt damage can be expensive! Water can destroy the suppleness of the leather, without protection, leather becomes dried out so it will eventually start to crack, damaging your footwear. You can prevent this and reduce the weathering of your shoes and boots by treating your leathers. Salt and other harsh chemicals can also stain and weaken your waterproof shoes whether they are made from leather, suede, nubuck, synthetics or textiles. Luckily this is easily avoided and can be fixed with the use of suitable cleaning products.How to choose the right water proofing products
When choosing the right product for water proofing and protecting your shoes you need to consider what your shoes are going to be used for (i.e) if you‘re going to spend lots of time in wet conditions we would recommend using a wax product as opposed to a protective spray which is best suited for smart fashion based footwear.
