How are Shoes Made? - By: Jamie Simpson

Shoes as everybody knows, are an accessory that were invented to protect feet from the elements as well as the terrain. It is not known exactly when humankind first started to wear shoes. Historians believe that humans may have started to wear shoes as far back as 30,000 years ago. Of course in those days they didn't wear the fancy shoes we have nowadays, they were generally made from raw animal skin or certain types of tree bark. The way they were "worn" was by simply wrapping the feet with it. Tying it involved using a string, which was usually a vine, by wrapping it around the leg.

Some of the ancient cultures found in Egypt, China and India were perhaps the first people to actually wear a shoe in the modern sense of the word. These were more intricately designed and built accessories that could be worn by simply sliding ones feet into them. They were mostly made out of leather or some sort of cloth such as silk or cotton fabric. There is archaeological proof of this that date back around 3-4000 years ago. Those early shoes were considered expensive and generally only royalty or aristocracy and maybe a few wealthy merchants could afford them.

This relative high cost of shoes continued for centuries. The reason for the high cost was because of the cost of labour and materials that went into making them. Like with many products, all this changed with the arrival of the industrial revolution. Now suddenly shoes could be mass produced with machines such as the sewing machine. Along with tools there was new materials available such as vulcanized rubber, adhesives and eventually plastic. These new materials eventually replaced leather. Nowadays leather is mostly used to make expensive dress shoes.

One of the major changes in shoe design happened when shoes got a sewn on sole. This trend started in the 17th century and remains as an integral part of shoe making to this day. Along with the sole another major design change was the foot specific shoe. Before the 19th century, shoes were not made specifically for the right or left foot. The shoe could be worn on both the right and left foot. In the 20th century, more materials such as polyurethane fibre and other advanced plastics were brought in to make shoes.

As mentioned earlier, before the industrial revolution, making a shoe was a laborious process that could take several days. Nowadays with equipments such as leather processors and shoe forming machines, a pair of shoe can be assemble in a matter of hours. As far as prices of shoes go, a simple pair made out of a cheap material such as jute will cost only a few pounds. A good quality dress shoe made from leather can cost hundreds of pounds.

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