There is No Santa Claus in Men's Shoes

Saturday's Wall Street Journal had an article by Ray Smith about inexpensive men's shoe brands attempting to go upscale with slightly pricier offerings that ape some of the styling details found on much more expensive shoes ("Footing a Higher Bill", p. P7). Some of the shoes mentioned were a $140 pair of Hush Puppies made from "pre-aged leather" with a hand-stitched detail across the vamp; Bostonian's Italian-made Luxe line, featuring "antiqued leather" and a $170 price tag; and Rockport's $110 pair of wingtip bluchers with "hand-stitching on top and leather made to look vintage." Some other tidbits in the article include the fact that sales of men's dress shoes increased 13.5% last year, compared to a 0.6% increase in sales of men's casual shoes.

First, a word about potential biases. I have been interviewed by Ray Smith before (for a story that never came to fruition), and he had contacted me about doing an interview for this story. Ultimately, he and his editor decided that they wanted the story to go in a different direction, so the interview never took place. I enjoy Ray's articles in the Journal (nearly all about men's clothing); and although I think that they're often a bit basic, they probably fit well with the average Journal reader.

It shouldn't be a surprise either that the cheaper brands are aping the more expensive ones or that they're trying to get more money for their shoes. This has been going on in the clothing world (and with every other kind of consumer good) since time immemorial. The types of design elements that Ray mentions came into vogue on more expensive brands several years ago, and it's not surprising that they would trickle down. What I have noticed about such knockoff shoes that I've seen is that they give it the ol' college try, but they don't quite get it right. One of the quotes in the story hits it on the head:

Evaluating the Hush Puppies model, Eric Rizk, a conflicts analyst for a financial advisory firm, was surprised by the cost of the pricier shoes by Hush Puppies and Johnston & Murphy. "This stitching looks cheap," he said, evaluating the Hush Puppies model. "It doesn't even look like leather." He thought Johnston & Murphy's $295 shoe should also be priced less, at about $150, calling the look and stitching merely OK.

Quality leather isn't cheap, and it's getting more expensive. Good hides are harder to come by these days, and new environmental regulations have driven many European tanneries out of business. Quality construction isn't cheap, either, and the decline of the dollar relative to the euro has made decent European-made shoes increasingly expensive. When brands attempt to copy the look of $800 shoes for $140, it's just not going to come out quite right. Corners have to be cut to meet the price. There's no way around it. Not wanting to pay $800 for a pair of shoes is entirely rational, but recognize the trade-offs you're making when you spend less.

(As an aside, note that not a whole lot has to be done to a pair of shoes in Italy for them to be legally labeled as "Made in Italy". Typically, most of the work is done across the Adriatic in Slovenia or Croatia, where labor costs are very low. The mostly-made shoes are then shipped to Italy, finished, and emblazoned with the "Made in Italy" label. Nice, huh?)