A well cared-for pair. Photo by Ryan Plett of You Have Broken the Internet.

Rather than give you another fanatical instruction guide on how to polish your shoes, we interviewed three experts about why you should do it. For me, part of it is ritual and nostalgia. I associate it with my father and grandfather getting their shoes and boots out on Sunday and polishing them all. But there’s more to it than the smell of polish and mink oil. I asked a leather guy, a style guy and a shoe shine guy about their takes on polishing and maintenance. Nick Horween breaks down shoe leather and how and why to treat it right, Ryan Plett displays some very tasty brogues and discusses his thoughts on style and investing in quality, and Nicolo Timore distills hundreds of shoe shines into one word: preservation.

Nicolo Timore shined for a few years in the financial district of Boston before I met him. He keeps his hand-in guesting at special events with an easy patter and a tall loose-limbed frame. Have you heard the phrase “Boston cracked shoe?” I bet Nicolo can’t stand them.

Nicolo: “To me, shining shoes is a necessary step one must take in preserving the shoe. The polish itself gives a slight protective coat of wax so repeated and consistent shining can add years to the life of a shoe. This should be done one or two times a month, depending on how roughly you treat them. For older or more beat up shoes, shining should be more frequent. A good shine will help protect shoes from getting damaged by weather, and will remove stains left by rain, snow, salt, etc. The day after a storm is usually very busy.

A man shines his shoes.

Reasons for a shoe shine would vary; weather damage, wanting to look good for the meeting or girl/boyfriend. Some customers just wanted to keep their shoes in good condition for as long as possible. And some people simply enjoy the luxury of having someone shine their shoes (usually assholes).

I would say the customers were about 60% men, 40% women. But all these reasons for a shine would apply to both men and women.”

Don't let those legendary Maud Frizons go to rot.

Ryan Plett lives and works in Chicago. Between brand consulting and shooting/editing You Have Broken the Internet and Travel Well, he’s a busy man. Ryan is a proponent of looking good from the ground up and buying things to last. I can safely say he’s a shoe guy.

Ryan: “My footwear tastes are reserved and classic, with small hints of color. Overall I want my shoes to display a level of quality and tell a story; a guy who has been places. For me the upkeep of my shoes is much more than attaining a shine… I think the upkeep and maintenance appeals to me because I’ve always been a person who takes care of things. I don’t “baby” things, I expect them to last, and I don’t buy garbage so when I invest in quality I take care of it. Growing up in my family money was not endless, the higher priced quality goods were not just handed over, they were worked for. So just like everyone always says, when I worked for it, it meant more.

Now I wouldn’t be completely telling the truth if I said I loved great shoes simply because they last, and can be easily maintained. I really do believe that style starts from the ground up, and that most men should really invest in great footwear. Great footwear can make an otherwise bland look a success, and bad footwear can destroy an otherwise perfect one.”

Brogues with a good shine. Photo by Ryan Plett.

Nick Horween is the director of Horween Leathers. Horween has been producing leather for over a hundred years in Chicago and is one of the oldest continuously running tanneries in America.

Nick: “For me, shoe care falls into three groups: conditioning, protecting and aesthetics. Conditioning is achieved by using a product that will nourish the leather if/when it dries. Protecting usually involves some sort of wax or oil blend to give water resistance or other characteristics. Aesthetic care usually means shining with a harder wax that will become glossy, though some products are designed to give a matte finish (or something in the middle). Of course, just about every shoe care product on the market will do all three of these in some capacity. Just like anything else, all products will do one or two of these three things better than the other. It’s all about compromises.

I suppose that cleaning is the forgotten-about 4th item — but that almost always just involves a damp cloth and a good brushing.

A shoe shine brush in action.

The most important of the three, after cleaning, is the conditioning bit. Leather is, after all, just skin. A tanners job is to preserve the hide, remove all the perishable components (fats, oils), strengthen the hide, and then introduce new, non-perishable components (fats, oils, extracts) that then leave the material supple. Once this is all done, we can then finish the surface to give it visual appeal. To me, that means: if you don’t have a material in a shoe with integrity and pliability, it doesn’t really matter what it looks like.

My personal shoe care routine is very straightforward. Clean with a damp cloth, brush, allow to dry, apply cream/conditioner/wax, allow to rest, brush, buff with a soft cloth.

Depending on the leather, frequency and materials used will vary. Caring for shoes is kind of like getting an oil change. After a certain number of miles, you’re really obliged to do it. But, if it’s just been a couple of months, it really depends on the owner and the make and model. That said, there’s no reason not to take care of a pair of shoes, or get them re-soled if the construction will allow. Getting a pair of shoes re-bottomed is a great way to update a shoe.

The ghost of shoe shine boys past.

A few things to look out for when caring for a shoe: solvents, dyes and over-application. Applying too much wax/material will just cause that material to sit up on the surface, cake, and collect dirt. Almost all products have some solvent in them. These are to help carry the actual wax/oil evenly across the leather, at which point they air off leaving only the good stuff. A product with too much solvent can cause the leather to dry out faster than usual. Also, the solvents will sometimes pull dye off of the leather, which can change the appearance of the leather. Products with dyes can also lead to a change in appearance.”

Tennis with shoes.

Images not taken by Ryan Plett were found by Gijs van der Most.

FURTHER READING

Sending a complex mixed message with the blue bloods-only Boston cracked shoe: “The junior members of a firm that were striving to climb the corporate ladder would keep their shoes well repaired and shined every day. But the guys with the Boston Cracked Shoe look didn’t worry about something like this, because they not only had climbed the ladder, they owned it.” Ivy Style.

Salt-free shoes, Valet Magazine

Leather Tanning, Kaufmann Mercantile

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Crocodile on Deck of a Steamer in Africa, Courtesy of Gordon Mumford (Click on Image to Enlarge)

Grabbing hungrily at the essence of exotic hides, rabid consumption has instead cheapened the unusual material, transforming it from a mark of quality and class to one of superficiality and vulgarity.

Revered for centuries as a luxury item, the utility of exotic skins has been obscured by its role as signifier of wealth. While exotic skins may have been part of the trousseaux of ancient Egyptian royalty, strong, water resistant salmon leather was used by the Nanai of Siberia for at least three of the things necessary for survival in the frigid north—clothing, tents, and boats.

Eel skin, prized for its thin and delicate feel, is far from flimsy. The tensile strength of eel is one hundred and fifty times greater than a cow leather of the same thickness. Crocodiles can lounge languidly on river banks and at the top of food chains in part because of the strength of their armor, a quality retained in the preserved hide. And in Medieval Japan, the handles of samurai swords were bound with the skin of stingrays. When preserved, the hide develops a coarse pattern of raised beads, perfect for keeping a tight grip on your sword, even when drenched in blood.

Vintage Crocodile Trunk, Courtesy of 1stdibs

Closer to home, exotic skins were traditionally used for the items that were expected to endure time and use. The best steamer trunks, built to be knocked around in passenger ships and locomotives, were made of crocodile. The worn edges of a crocodile Hermes Kelly bag is testament to a time when an expensive object was meant to return dividends in longevity.

Hermès Vintage Kelly Handbag, Courtesy of Portero

The use of exotic skins, however, is more than just a matter of taking it back from the tawdry. A hundred years ago, consumers, producers and poachers operated with the mistaken notion that anything in nature existed in endless abundance, when in fact they were driving animals of land and sea to the verge of extinction.

Two Woman Posing with Stuffed Alligator in Florida, Circa 1910s, Courtesy of Florida Memory

Conservation and wildlife management have slowed humanity’s species death count, but consumers will have to take responsibility for our insatiable appetites, and perhaps bear the lessons of exotic skins in mind: buy few and far between, buy for quality and longevity, and be wary of the slippery slope between the beautiful and the grotesque.

During the Alligator Hunting Season in Florida, Courtest of Life Magazine

FURTHER READING:

K. Fuchs, M. Fuchs, and L. Deidrich. Fascination Leather: Common and Exotic Skins Under the Microscope. Editions Chimaira. April 2010.

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Eddie, Horween Leather Co., Cordovan Department, Image by Brett Nadal

Leather is not simply the skin of a dead animal. It is a material made through a multi-step process by skilled tanners in a craft that goes back at least 5000 years. In the ancient world, formulas were whispered from father to son, and trade guilds of the European Middle Ages protected the secrets of the process. Tanning is not undertaken lightly. It takes experience, as well as a dedication to quality, to produce the kind of leather that deserves to be revered.

It is hard to marvel at a pair of stately wingtips, or turn your grandfather’s wallet over in your hand’s and understand why they feel richer and why the textures are more luxurious without understanding what goes into it.

Image by Brett Nadal

THE SKIN

Leather can be made of any type of animal skin. Ostriches, raccoon tails, goats, snakes and stingrays can all hope to be made into a shoe or a wallet but the majority of the world’s leathers are bovine—cow, calf, or buffalo. The next two largest sources of leather are equally delicious: lamb chops and bacon, or as they are known in the leather industry, sheep and pig. Most commercial leathers, as you may have guessed, are a by-product of the meat industry. While it may be the imperfect stepchild of the ideal of using all parts of an animal, it is comforting to know that there isn’t a parallel industry supplying skin for leathers, and tossing out the steak.

Tanning, by definition, does not alter the original fibrous structure of the skin – good leather begins with a good skin. “We try to source as many of our materials as domestically as possible,” Nick Horween says, “We do get better “selections” from some hide suppliers over others, so we buy as much as we can from those specific brokers.” Horween’s cowhides come primarily from North America – Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Canada – while the horsehide supplies come primarily from France, as well as Quebec and Belgium, where horse is more likely to turn up at the meat counter.

The skin is cured to prevent putrification during transit from slaughterhouse to tannery, then processed to remove hair and any remaining flesh. There is liming and de-liming, bating, washing and pickling before the hide is ready to be tanned.

Image by Brett Nadal

IT’S NOT LEATHER TIL YOU TAN IT

The purpose of tanning – regardless of the technique – is to alter the protein structure of raw animal skin, preserving it from decay and turning it into the material so beloved the world over. A nice soak in tanning liquor, an astringent solution of carbon-based tannins or mineral compounds, is what keeps your oxfords from rotting straight off your feet.

Industrial tanning uses two basic methods that produce different leathers suitable for different uses. In the hands of a skilled tanner with recipes for a good tanning liquor and opulent finishing oils, both vegetable and chrome tanning can produce leathers of transcendent quality. Hurriedly done, however, a vegetable tanned hide can crack and peel, and a poorly made chrome tanned leather may as well be pleather.

Pickling Hides at Horween

Chrome tanning, the relative newcomer to a millennia-old craft, was developed in 1858. Hides are tumbled in drums with a solution of metal chromium, a naturally occurring ore. More than 80% of the world’s leathers are chrome tanned, and varieties within the technique produce different leathers suited to a wide range of uses, from goods as rugged as hiking boots, to adornments as delicate as a pair of ladies’ Neapolitan gloves. The popularity of this method results from the speed of tanning and the versatility of the finished skin.

Hemlock, oak bark, mangrove, millet, birch, larch and pine, as well as extracts from mimosa, and sumac are used in various combinations and proportions for vegetable tanned leather. The older of the two methods, “vegetable tanning is the “old world” technique”, Nick says, and it produces thick, malleable leathers, which are more limited in use. The hides are soaked in a series of gentle vegetable liquors, a slow process that, when done right, results in the firm, even leathers of sturdy shoes and hand-tooled saddles.

Vintage Football

Horween’s signature Shell Cordovan is the only genuine, straight vegetable tanned cordovan still produced in America. Much more than its deep burgundy shade, real Cordovan leather is cut from horse hide and is the result of loyal adherence to a process that was first developed by the Moors of medieval Cordoba, Spain. “Cordovan takes six months,” Nick explains, “two separate tannages of thirty days each, and ninety days rest after being hand-oiled.”

Combination tanning uses both processes – an initial chrome tanning, and a retanning with vegetable liquors. The majority of Horween’s leathers, including the popular Chromexcel, are tanned using a proprietary formula, and hot stuffed with their own secret recipe of smoothing fats and oils. “Combination tanning is a great method for producing leathers because it allows us to take advantage of the varying benefits chrome and vegetable tanning provide. Chrome tannages generally provide soft, supple and very durable leather. Vegetable tanning yields leather that is easier to shape and feels more ’round’ when in the hand. By combination tanning, we are able to produce leathers that mold well and feel great to the touch.”

Workers at Horween, Circa 1940s

NOT ALL LEATHERS ARE EQUAL

Tanning, Nick says, “Is a combination between science and cooking,” as anyone who has come up with slop at the end of a Julia Child recipe knows, getting something right is more than just following directions. “We always start with the best raw materials; for example, food grade beef tallow, cosmetic grade beeswax… products that you probably wouldn’t see in the vast majority of tanneries. The main emphasis here is the skill required to make leather, and our workforce is the most important component of our process. We have many employees that have been with us for 20, 30, even 40 years -  there’s no substitution for that kind of experience.”

The Horween Leather Company was founded by Isadore Horween in 1905, and the company and its techniques have been passed down through five generations, making Horween one of the oldest continuously running tanneries in America. To put it in perspective – Horween is a contemporary of Ford Motors and its mechanized assembly line. Horween achieved its stature in the same century that outsourced nearly the entire American manufacturing sector and produced the national ethos of bigger, faster, cheaper. Horween’s success in such an improbable century is testament that dedication to producing the best has no substitute.

Drying Leather Hides at Horween

FURTHER READING:

Charles Thomas Davies. The Manufacture of Leather. 1899. Henry Carey Baird & Co.

Leather Glossary

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Industrial purchasers have big wallets and tend to get less caught up in unnecessary innovation or flashy design. The right material is put where it’s best served. With important purchases costs are secondary and form follows function.

Without the Necessary Care, Leather Cracks Over Time

This bag from Pro Can Corp. was made for Du Pont.

I wonder what they transported inside? Whatever it was, they certainly wanted to keep it safe. Its content was protected by thick canvas and secured by a leather strip that runs through durable metal buckets, which can be secured with a pad lock.

Metal Ring for Pad Lock

The bottom is made out of a unusual thick rubber/PVC. Maybe to protect from chemical spills?

Can Pro Corp., Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin

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Vintage Wooden Snowshoe with some Steel Wire Repairs

It is believed that snowshoes were invented in northern Asia about 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. (Since the materials don’t last that long, there is no archaeological evidence.) Historians think that the ancestors to the Inuits and Native Americans were using (or at least carrying) snowshoes, when they migrated from Asia to North America via the Bering Street.

1899 Wooden Snoewhoes and Hunting Equipment / Photo by H.C. Barley

The Inuit and Native Americans (most notably the Athabascans, Algonquin, Attikamek, Montagnais, Cree, Naskapi, Labrador and Iroquois) mastered the development of snowshoe making. Although snowshoes were also used in Europe, mainly in the Alps and Scandinavia, their development was not as sophisticated as of those across the Atlantic. In Europe there was a stronger focus on the development of skis to facilitate walking and traveling through deep snow. The snowshoe, in its advanced form, was introduced in Europe only when the first settlers brought them back from North America around 1600.

Attikamek woman with a snowshoe, 1979. Photo by Henri Vaillancourt

For Native Americans that were living in the northern part of the continent, snowshoes were essential for hunting and gathering materials in wintertime. They were manufactured with great care, and with materials that were best suited for the job — the hard wood of the white ash and the durable hide of the caribou or moose. Occasionally moose intestines or tendons were used as well. If none of these were available, sealskins for the top section and larch for the frame were substituted. The introduction of the cow by the Europeans lead to a greater use of cowhide, a practice that continues to this day. Native Americans fastened their moccasins with leather thongs to the snowshoe.

Rawhide with Remainings of Wax

Different indigenous tribes constructed different types of snowshoes, depending on which design fitted their local topography and snow conditions best. There are literally hundreds of different shapes and varieties, suitable for different terrains. In areas where sharp maneuvers were necessary (as in forests or steep climbs), shorter and wider shoes were developed. In more open terrains, long, narrow shoes were the preferred choice.

Chart from the 2002 book "Snowshoeing" by Gene Prater & Dave Felkley

Over the past centuries, the making of a wooden snowshoe hasn’t changed much. A single strip of wood is soaked or steamed to make it pliable, before bending it into shape. In order to ensure its longevity, it is important that the wood doesn’t have poor grain or knots. The frames are then dried, usually in a kiln or hot room. This takes two to seven days.

Cree woman building a snowshoe, 1979. Image by Henri Vaillancourt

The frame is then laced with rawhide. A heavier lacing is usually used for the center part of the shoe, where most of the load is carried. For the lacing, it is best to use “green hides.” Green hides are rawhides after the fur, fat and meat have been removed, but before drying. As the rawhide dries in the frame, it tightens and smooths. For the Native Americans, lacing was an art in itself, with intricate patterns and colors.

Attikamek Snowshoe / Image Found at Birchbarkcanoe.com

For European settlers in the northern parts of America snowshoes became essential for traders, trappers and people whose life or livelihood relied on the ability to travel in areas of deep snowfall. In an age when roads and walkways were less maintained, people living in rural areas depended on snowshoes to get around town.

Ottawa, Ontario 1890

Settlers usually bought their snowshoes from the Native Americans. Ironically, in part, it was a Native American invention that helped European settlers spread across their continent.

Joseph Burr Tyrrell & Monroe Ferguson on a 1894 Geological Survey

As legend goes, snowshoes became a crucial tool in two (1, 2) 18th century battles during the French and Indian War (North America’s part of the world-wide Seven Years’ War from 1756-1763) between France (who joined forces with the Native Americans) and the British. Apparently the events, which were won by the French and Native Americans, led the British military to make snowshoes part of their basic equipment.

With growing cities and the white man’s need to ‘tame’ nature by developing and maintaining roads, the demand for snowshoes diminished. However, in the 19th century they started becoming a popular form of recreation. In 1840 the Montreal Snowshoe Club was the first to organize hikes and competitive races. Other clubs soon followed (Minnesota alone is said to have had more than 60 clubs), and snowshoeing grew (especially in French Canada) into a serious sport with intense rivalry between its participants. Brightly colored themes crafted in wool blankets, worn with matching hats, identified the club or the region.

Photo Era Magazine 1922

With the growing demand, more and more snowshoe manufacturers started popping up, some lead by non-Native Americans. The general designs followed the traditional Indians ones, but with some technological development, for example the implementation of metal buckle bindings.

Part of Snowshoe Binding

In recent decades, snowshoeing has had a revival, and is now practiced  more than ever as a winter exercise. The United States Snowshoe Association, founded in 1977, serves as a governing body for competitive snowshoe racing and hurdle jumping. Similar organizations exist in Europe, Canada and Japan. (Among snowshoers, there are some hopes that it may soon be recognized as an Olympic sport.) It is believed that the snowshoeing revival is partly caused by snowboarders’ desire to reach untouched powder snow slopes. Today, about 500 American schools, mostly in the Northeast, offer snowshoeing in their P.E. classes, and the Canadian Forces still use snowshoes as basic military equipment for all soldiers.

US 10th Mountain Div. Army Ski Patrol in Italy, April 1945

In the 1950s, with the introduction of synthetic plastics, snowshoe manufacturers started to experiment in integrating these new man-made materials. Today, in modern snowshoes, the wooden frame is usually replaced with aluminum, and the rawhide webbing and leather binding with nylon, neoprene or PVC.

There are several reasons why many people prefer modern snowshoes over their wooden ancestors. The main ones are that the rawhide needs maintenance (waxing or varnishing to keep the hide from drying out) once a year, and because modern snowshoes have superior bindings, including crampons for better grip on ice and when climbing uphill.

However, there are still manufacturers of wooden snowshoes, and it is said that the best wooden snowshoes are still made in Indian reservations. Manufacturers of traditional snowshoes have also started using newer materials. The binding seems to be the center of focus. 10engines put it beautifully: “The pisser with old-old bindings is if your heel pops out of the straps; trying to fix iced leather straps and buckles with bare fingers is no fun.”

A plus for wooden snowshoes is that walking in them is much quieter than in their metal and plastic alternatives. And isn’t a peaceful hike in the woods what snowshoeing should be all about?

Snowshoe Hike 1944

To me, snowshoes are a typical representation of the last hundred years of product development, where natural materials have increasingly been substituted by synthetic ones. This switch offers a solution to some of the problems and inconveniences (in snowshoes for example the annual maintenance of the rawhide laces), but a satisfactory result has not been reached. I don’t know how you feel, but I think the use of PVC and other plastics in snowshoes is both aesthetically questionable and environmentally unacceptable. Snowshoers are still a rare breed, but if any of you have more experiences with wooden vs. modern snowshoes — let me know what they are.

Image by Grey Villet, 1961

Snowshoes are also a good example of illustrating how different cultures offer separate solutions for the same problem. Westerners frantically clean their sidewalks, as soon as the first snow hits the ground, whereas the Native Americans prefer to ‘float’ on top of it. An old Native American saying goes: “The white man always attempted to avoid the snow or skirt it, whereas the Indian always looked for the best way to walk on it and live in harmony with nature.”

Attikemek woman, 1979 / Image by Henri Vaillancourt

Relief Workers, Upper Brockway, Nebraska 1934

Image by Grey Villet, 1961

The LIFE Magazine images found at Google Books.

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Telefunken Match Transistor Radio 1963

As often with technology, prices dropped fast. By 1963, when the Telefunken Match came out, transistor radios were widespread. People didn’t need much convincing that being able to listen to music and the news almost anywhere was a good thing.

The Match was designed by Richard Sapper (born 1932) and is one of his lesser known creations. Sapper, who has more than fifteen of his designs in the permanent MoMA collection, doesn’t like to stick to what he knows. He constructed clocks, cars, car tires, lamps, TVs, coffee makers, furniture, telephones and many other things. He says that this approach allows him to transfer knowledge of material and technology from one industry to the next.

Sapper also designed the original IBM ThinkPad laptop, making a drastic change to the company’s appearance. Apparently IBM managers were shocked when they found out that roughly one-third of the ThinkPad’s sales were due to its design, and not its technology.

In this interview Sapper explains that he wants to create a close relation between the owner and the product – like a teddy bear to a baby. This he considers, other than supporting the function, is the most important purpose of design.

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