Synthetic fabrics vs. fabrics made of natural fibers

[barnhart]

I think we also have become accustomed to accessing cheap labor from around the world to the point we can't imagine paying real world prices. For example for a lot of furniture I produce, the raw materials cost more than a similar looking item in a store. If we want to go back to this economy we would have to dramatically reduce consumption. We would have to be content with one or two new articles of clothing per year, owning two pair of shoes, and just a few pieces of furniture that you keep the rest of your life.

We bought an oak table when we moved back up to the States, and got it from a distributor that sold China made furniture. But it's made of American Red Oak. I have heard that they ship the wood over to China, then immediately load it on a ship that has a fully equipped carpentry shop. It was said that they build the products on the way over to the US, then head back again. Somehow it qualifies as a China-made product, and this makes it cheaper?

I would guess they avoid a lot of regulation, environmental concerns, no labor laws, no SS taxes etc....

[JohnH]

I think we also have become accustomed to accessing cheap labor from around the world to the point we can't imagine paying real world prices. For example for a lot of furniture I produce, the raw materials cost more than a similar looking item in a store. If we want to go back to this economy we would have to dramatically reduce consumption. We would have to be content with one or two new articles of clothing per year, owning two pair of shoes, and just a few pieces of furniture that you keep the rest of your life.

One wonders how cheap labour makes an item cost less than the raw materials.

[Soloist]

I’ve had to get work done on my pair of wood shoes a few times. While it’s true they will last a long time, I also have to pay to get them resoled about yearly and I need to treat the leather weekly.
The bottle of leather treatment will probably last a year, and it’s very frustrating to me that the company uses such high-quality leather that unfortunately stretches very easily.
The wood will last a lifetime providing I keep it soled.
Paying a cobbler local is like 90$ to do it, a guy 45 minutes away charges 15$

I just got fed up buying danskos and having them wear out in under a year despite having reputation lasting over five years these shoes cost a little more and I’ve had to buy 3 pairs just to get the them correctly fitted… so… 500 on shoes with 30ish a year to avoid paying 160 a year.

[Neto]

Shoes
I have been sourcing my work shoes from second-hand stores over the last 10 to 15 years, paying around two to five dollars a pair. These are leather 'dress shoes', often showing almost no wear at all when I get them. But those I've purchased in the last few years are not lasting the 2 1/2 to 3 years I was getting earlier. (Some longer.) I know that this doesn't sound like much time, but I had been walking a lot back & forth to my rented work place here in town, over cement and blacktop surfaces, plus using them for outdoor work like shoveling dirt or gravel, etc. The later ones are not made to the same level of quality as before. The older ones had sewn rubber soles and heels - now the soles are very thin, and are just glued to the leather uppers. The glue gets old, and the entire sole comes loose. I've used "Shoe Goo" on several pairs of shoes in the last year, but it doesn't hold up to the heavy wear, with lots of kneeling and the flexing in the soles that results. I stopped in at a shoe repair shop in Charm to have the last pair fixed, but he said that the sole is too thin, even though there is still very little wear on the bottoms - just the way they were made. I wanted them sewn onto the uppers, but he said that the stitching would cut through the soles around the edges.

So now I don't consider any pair of shoes that do not have the sole sewn directly to the uppers. This is the other factor with the idea of repairing things rather than replacing them - the product must be good quality or it cannot be reasonably repaired.

Not sure now when I bought the last new shoes, but it was quite a few years back, possibly 10 years. I needed new shoes for my computer service work, and I found some that were made in Brazil that literally fit like a glove, from the very first day. No 'getting used to them' at all. The first pair were brown, but realizing how good they were, we went back a week or two later, and I bought a black pair just like them. But I haven't worn them for work at all. The brown ones I use for travel, and occasionally for the more informal church services, but normally the black ones are just for church services. (The brand is Stephan Bossi. A Brazilian once complained to me that all of the top quality shoes are exported to the US and other countries, and the misfits are sold there in Brazil. But while we lived there I nearly always wore shoes we bought there, the only difficulty being that men in the region of Brazil where we lived generally have much smaller feet than I do, so shoes that are large enough for me were rarely stocked. That was changing in the last years we lived there, with more and more "European stock" Brazilians moving north into the more recently settled areas of the country.)

[barnhart]

I have a pair of shoes with crepe rubber sole that show significant wear even though the uppers are quite nice. I plan to glue on half soles myself and see how it goes. In the past I've taken shoes to a repair person and inspecting the work has led me to think I can do it myself. I do have a belt sander to level it up and wood clamps so I'm better prepared than average.n

[JimFoxvog]

So what do the "natural" people do for shoes?

The best and most natural shoes are the ones God gave us, our bare feet.

One can develop strong, leather-like soles naturally.

Unfortunately, I have a circulation problem, and have had to give up going barefoot in cold weather. Every spring, it takes a while to get my feet back in shape.

[JohnH]

I have been captivated by the shoe repair reels by Sergio Alberini, a cobbler who has 600,000 plus followers on Facebook. His work is really incredible. My guess is he makes more off ads than he does on fixing shoes. It's incredibly satisfying to watch what can be done with a worn-out pair of shoes. I don't know whether it makes sense economically, but there should be people like this in every town.

Very nice. I actually make a living doing the equivalent with furniture craft and my observation is not many people are willing to pay what it costs.

Start posting your work on Tik-Tok and now you have a solid business plan

Or just AI-generate such videos along with a few thousand other variations of the theme, and skip actually having to learn anything.

[mike]

Very nice. I actually make a living doing the equivalent with furniture craft and my observation is not many people are willing to pay what it costs.

Start posting your work on Tik-Tok and now you have a solid business plan

Or just AI-generate such videos along with a few thousand other variations of the theme, and skip actually having to learn anything.

At this point, I feel like I could easily tell the difference between an authentic cobbler working and something AI generated, but I fear that could change. AI videos are usually really short, because it takes a tremendous amount of computing power to generate a long sequence, and they are usually just fantastical enough that they don't make sense.

[JohnH]

Start posting your work on Tik-Tok and now you have a solid business plan

Or just AI-generate such videos along with a few thousand other variations of the theme, and skip actually having to learn anything.

At this point, I feel like I could easily tell the difference between an authentic cobbler working and something AI generated, but I fear that could change. AI videos are usually really short, because it takes a tremendous amount of computing power to generate a long sequence, and they are usually just fantastical enough that they don't make sense.

The main reason they’re that way is because it gets more engagement / views.

[ohio jones]

At this point, I feel like I could easily tell the difference between an authentic cobbler working and something AI generated, but I fear that could change. AI videos are usually really short, because it takes a tremendous amount of computing power to generate a long sequence, and they are usually just fantastical enough that they don't make sense.

I am being served up videos of classic cars that are obviously AI-generated. They are easily distinguished by not looking like the real thing (labeled Buick Riviera boattail, but looks like a cross between a Monte Carlo and an AMC Matador?!) and having door handles in illogical places.