Survey: Do You Fix Your Shoes?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 10.23.08
A certain frugal presidential candidate wears his shoes until there are holes in the bottoms and then has them resoled. This surprised me, I did not think anyone did this anymore. Nor did I think that someone on a campaign trail would wear leather soles when they could get more shock absorbent alternatives. Image by Callie Shell in Time
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Shouldn't everyone choose option A in almost every purchase?
Put it simply, sports shoes, I will not buy a pair of shoes unless I can see that it can be repaired. I got sick and tired of chucking away fundamentally good shoes because the soles had gone through and no one could repair them.
Not all repairs are equal, once you find a good cobbler stick to them like glue and shower them with work.
me, i buy army boots & get them resoled every couple years. they last a really long time & are very comfortable (once theyre broken in) plus they can be bought for cheap at surplus shops.
When you break in a leather shoe the comfort is so much better then a springy sweatshop and glue shoe.
I would argue that there is little more comfortable than a proper pair of leather soled dress shoes or boots. I own Ecco's, Cole Haan's with the Nike Air pack and some great leather soled shoes/boots in and amongst many pairs of sneakers. If choosing on comfort alone give me my leather boots anyday.
I don't repair my shoes, because for whatever reason, even good sneakers I buy tend to break in many places at once; repairing would cost more than buying new.
I have repaired my Birkenstocks, though.
Of course I fix my shoes! I still call the shoe repair guy a 'cobbler' too. It's not just a word out of a kid's nursery rhyme.
What I don't understand is why everyone doesn't buy repairable shoes. Sneakers I understand. But for my dress shoes, I never buy crepe soles that don't last.
I'm currently going through the veggie v's leather dilemma and so far haven't found any solutions. Even though I'm not into girly heely shoes, fashion is also a strong element. so far the only descent option is Worn Again otherwise I can't find anything nice and my 3 pairs of runners are getting beyond repair. Sipmy don't have a nice selection here in Europe and I'm refusing to ship in the US.
I have a diff take to this. I use not genuine leather but synthetic one. The shoes may not last that long, say just one year, but I am not killing any animal for my soles. The rubber soles once broken or flattened, can resole them. But you have to really hunt for a cobbler who will do that for you. Thats because, these soles are molded and not custom ones. Also go through a recycle procedure, which leather may not.