Chicago’s Last Tannery
thedistance.com
thedistance.com
I worked nights and weekends. I'm still not able to support myself 100% with this venture, but I have my heart in it and I'm willing to hustle and grind until I can.
The first clients were free. Mostly friends and people I met that I asked what product they needed most. Then I went off and tried to make it. The reaction when someone holds something made by your hand is like a drug.
If you want to talk more about it, feel free to email me. info [at] starkmade [dot] com
I have one of these wallet, the leather is really impressive. It's nice to get more details on it with this article.
[1] https://www.weargustin.com/store/495
This is what the disagreement is over, though: empirically, do most people taking this route save money, or do they end up spending more money in hopes of long-term savings that do not materialize? It depends strongly on the shoe, wearer, and various failure modes (and how repairable / expensive to repair each of those failure modes is). In my own case, I've generally found that the expensive shoes fail to save money, because even though they're more repairable, the cost of repairs eats up any savings, vs. just treating shoes as a disposable good (might be different if I lived somewhere with lower labor costs; around here even a simple resoling costs $50, and anything more involved starts at $100+). That might still be worth it if you prefer the nice shoes, don't like unnecessarily sending things to landfills, or other reasons, but for me, from a strictly cost standpoint I've found it hard to come out ahead.
Shell cordovan is a bit unique amongst shoe leathers. It is valued by the people who wear it primarily because of the way it looks. Shell doesn't develop creases when you wear it, it develops "rolls". It also (at least in colors other than black, like Horween's famous Color 8), develops a patina that leather made from cow hide doesn't. It looks much better with age.
I just sold my late stepfather's 40 year old shell cordovan shoes for $100. They have seen lots of wear over the years, but are in great shape, and look amazing because of the afore-mentioned patina. That is why people pay that much for shell cordovan.
Another thing to consider aside from price and looks is that the design (how it is supposed to react on your walk) is fundamentally different from "cheap" snickers. For instance it's way more rigid and doesn't twist. For some it helps their walking, for others it's an hinderance.
I think your comment is completely unhelpful, because you're dismissing my point by simply repeating what the other person said. "You save money because you save money". No, if your shoe gets destroyed before you've worn them for six years, you're losing money. You don't seem to have addressed that point at all.
Ultimately, you've lived long enough at this point to know your shoe wearing habits to some degree. If you're the type to wear a particular sneaker day in and day out and are disappointed with the way it falls apart, it might be worthwhile to invest in a better shoe. If you wear a pair of leather shoes once a year, it might make more sense not to splurge, but if you wear a cheap pair often they're going to wrinkle and dull very quickly.
Do what makes sense for you, but there's no point in trivializing high-quality goods because you don't "get" them.
Buy $600 shoes if you want. But it's not always going to make economic sense to do so. I have a pair of $60 dress shoes that I've owned and worn for eight years now and they still look fantastic. I just don't wear dress shoes that much.
[1] http://horween.com/?timeline-date=alden-becomes-a-customer
Alden has used Horween for years. In fact, they might be the biggest customers for shell.
Honestly, if you take care of them, they'll last a lot longer than that. As mentioned below, I just sold my late stepfather's 40 year old Florsheim shell cordovan shoes for $100. They've seen lots of wear but I wouldn't be surprised if they're in use for decades more.
I'm not sure if that is a natural cycle of fashions - or a choice that has become repopular by increasing affluence.
I see a lot of low-volume, handcrafted things growing in size, whether it is low-volume hand-crafted vehicle manufacturers (like Morgan), low-volume handcrafted products (like craft beer) and even low-volume, hands-on farming.
At this point I take the re-emergence of these things as a sign of growing affluence, where there is so much disposable income it can be spent on things which are off the cost/benefit ratio in comparison to competitors. Perhaps it is a swing away from owning large properties as a form of wealth consumption and more towards individual items, betraying a gradual lowering in the average age of people who are able to afford such things.
At any rate, it's an interesting phenomena to watch.
My company, Original Fuzz, just launched a guitar strap that uses Horween leather (http://www.originalfuzz.com/products/skinny-leather-guitar-s...), and we could have never made it with Horween 10 years ago. We're able to sell it for $48 because we can find customers from around the world through the web. You don't have to do the traditional keystone pricing and leave room for retailers and distributors if you don't want to.
Why?
In the context of submitting to HN, though, you're right, it makes no sense. My guess is that people just grab the content of the TITLE element and don't bother doing the extra work to strip the site name out.
If the original title includes the name of the site, please take it out, because the site name will be displayed after the link anyway.