Synthetic Shoes

Plastic shoes have been around for years, and 35 companies now turn them out. But plastic has mostly been used for cheap shoes because it does not breathe like leather and usually makes feet hot and uncomfortable. Now a plastic-like material has been developed that looks, feels and breathes like leather, and is said to wear better and cost less to make. For the $700 million leather industry, which devotes 85% of its business to producing leather for shoe uppers, a challenge is at hand as great as the one that faced the textile industry a dozen years ago. Says Boston Shoemaker Hector Lynch, president of Howard & Foster Co.: "This may well be the nylon of the leather industry."

The threat to the industry comes largely from giant Du Pont, which has developed its own synthetic material for shoes after 13 years of searching in the labs. Du Pont is producing the material at a pilot plant in Newburgh, N.Y., is building a plant in Tennessee for full-scale production, and is exploring foreign markets with an eye to building overseas plants. The largest U.S. shoemaker, St. Louis' International Shoe Co.. hopes to make shoes from Du Pont's material by spring of 1964, and other firms are sure to follow. A similar synthetic material has been developed by New Jersey's small Arnav Industries Inc., which plans to produce 5,000 pairs of children's shoes a day by summer, is buying a plant in Pennsylvania to turn out 20,000 pairs a day by year's end.

Secretive as Russians. Both Du Pont and Arnav are as secretive as Russians about their processes, but both achieved breakthroughs by finding a method of putting thousands of microscopic holes into synthetics to enable them to "breathe." Both firms shy away from calling the synthetics plastics; Du Pont is calling its product a "poromeric material" (meaning full of microscopic holes) until it can decide on a trademark name. The shoe material is made in two or three layers: outside is a polyvinyl chloride film that can be treated to look like any leather, from cordovan to suede; next is either a layer of nylon or orlon (Du Pont) or one of polyurethane foam (Arnav); the shoe's inside layer is one of the standard lining materials.

The new shoes are said to be waterproof and scuff-resistant and are supposed to keep a permanent shine. Both Du Pont's and Arnav's new material has the advantage of coming in uniform, easy-to-handle rolls instead of in awkward pieces shaped like a cow. Though the new material is thus much cheaper to produce than leather, Du Pont has no intention of damaging its discovery's reputation by putting it into cheap shoes, will sell the material for a considerably higher price than the 40-c- to 80-c- per sq. ft. for leather. Though Arnav could profitably sell its children's shoes for $3, it will charge $5-.5.

Not Married. Du Pont salesmen have taken samples of their material to more than 100 shoe manufacturing plants, have found shoemakers so interested in the new material, says a Du Pont executive, that "it almost scares us.'' "We're not married to leather," says President Samuel Slosberg of Boston's Green Shoe Manufacturing Co. "If the consumer goes for this new stuff, so will we."

The leather industry that supplies the shoemen cannot afford to be unconcerned; 15 years ago they lost practically all of their leather sole business to synthetic Neolite. "If Du Pont succeeds in getting a few high-priced distributors to market synthetic shoes," says Boston Tanner Emery Huvos, "then we're licked. The prestige will get them the volume market, and that's what they're looking for." To try to prevent that, Leather Industries of America has doubled this year's advertising budget to $2,000,000 to tout the virtue of good old-fashioned leather.

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