Kind of, but kind of not.
It’s interesting being a bootmaker in Asia, because the perception from a lot of the public is very different to how it would be if I was a bootmaker in the western world.
As with most independent bootmakers, my main point of sale is through social media. And from this first contact point, most of the messages I receive are price queries.
I don’t quite understand this, because all Outstation boot prices are transparent to the public. I list the entire collection in a pinned highlight called ‘The Catalogue’ on IG.
I even have a ‘how much are they?’ question that people can click on in my Meta ads, which auto-replies to the person directing them to look at The Catalogue.
On a related side note, recently I’ve noticed that the situation with AI suggested messages is getting worse. That is, Meta AI now suggests messages that a customer can send back to me. An auto-response to my auto-reply, so to speak.
And, this auto-response suggestion is ‘How much are they?’
So it’s obvious that people (or the AI) aren’t reading my auto-reply, otherwise they would have read it, browsed The Catalogue and found the information they’re looking for.
Instead, people are simply clicking the auto-response, to respond to my auto-reply.
The world is just getting ridiculous at this point. A circular reference of auto- generated conversation. That no human is actually reading.
Anyway. AI talking to AI aside, this isn’t actually the topic of today’s journal entry.
Rather, today I have some observations about what the perception of bootmaker is. It seems to differ country by country, culture by culture.
And here’s my experience so far, being in Asia.
The story pre-amble. Bear with me.
Just to remind you (developed country reader), my boots are not affordable items for a country like Malaysia. I could go on about GDP per capita, but this isn’t a economics journal. If you’re interested, go and google it yourself.
So, there are people that would like to buy a pair of Outstation boots, but are either saving up for them, or waiting for a special occasion to treat themselves with a pair.
Nonetheless, people are very creative. Being in the developing world, creativity is part of life. Everything is possible if you’re creative. No can become yes, black can become white, rules can become not rules.
How not to get cheap boots.
When finding a way to afford a pair of Outstation boots, some creativity I’ve encountered includes:
1. Asking for a discount.
Fair I guess. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Unfortunately though, I don’t entertain discounting.
Outstation boots are already priced as low as I can go for what they are and how they’re made. So, if people are asking for discounts, they likely have no idea of what value they’re getting, compared to similar boots in the heritage world.
Anyway. The second way that creativity pops up is through the situation below.
2. Proposing to bring their own pieces of leather.
Meaning, somebody buys their own leather, and from it, I make a pair of boots for them.
It just doesn’t work like that.
To be honest, there’s nothing inherently wrong about buying material and bringing it to a maker. Especially in Asia.
In this part of the world it even goes so far as people buying fresh fish at the market, taking said fish to a restaurant, paying a fee and the restaurant cooking the fish for them.
If this was replicated in a restaurant somewhere in Europe, I think the chef’s face would have the same look as the (dead) fish. Because that’s just not how it works there.
Dead fish aside, let’s talk textiles to further the example a little.
When people couldn’t afford to buy off the shelf clothing some 50 years ago, they’d buy fabric from a textile seller and take it to a tailor.
They’d also likely find a magazine with a nice shirt on it, rip out the page, ask the tailor to copy it as best as possible, pay a bit of money, and end up with the shirt a few weeks later.
This way of doing business is still quite normal in many emerging markets today.
The craftspeople are commonplace (in comparison to western countries), the price is reasonable, and the quality is good enough.
Hordes of western tourists have experienced this in South-East Asia. From suits to dresses to bags. And maybe even boots.
Buy leather, make boot. Right?
Yes, but no.
So this one particular day, I received a message on social media. A particular individual asked me if he could buy leather, give it to me and then have a pair of Wanderer boots made.
My answer was simple. Unfortunately not.
Unlike many other craftsmen in my part of the world, I generally avoid to work in this way.
And here’s why.
1. Most people know nothing about leather as a material.
For the average person, leather is leather. After all, if a boot says genuine leather, then it must be leather right?
Wrong.
Within a certain price range, if something is labelled genuine leather, it’s made from leather scrap, mashed together, infused with glue, steamrolled into a flat sheet and sprayed with a plastic coasting.
Slap it with a ‘genuine leather’ tag and off it goes.
And because this unholy mix contains some ‘leather’, labelling it as leather isn’t illegal. It’s to do with industry regulation (or lack thereof). Or maybe labelling regulation. Or both.
Anyway, if this leather product is what the ‘average person’ understands leather to be, sadly, I can’t trust that the ‘average person’ can buy suitable leather for me to make a pair of boots with.
To test my hypothesis, I asked the individual a few questions to gauge his leather knowledge, and it was quickly clear that he had none.
Shrugs.
2. Most people don’t know that not all leather can be used for everything.
A cow, is like a human. It, at some point, was alive. And its hide is skin. Don’t forget that.
Some parts of the hide are great for bootmaking, like the back and shoulders. Some parts are terrible, like the belly.
Look at your own belly right now. Yes you. Now.
If you’re the ‘average person’, it’s highly likely that your belly is not in the best of shape. A bit saggy, loose. When you pinch and pull, how far out can you stretch it?
So, if your belly was turned into leather and made into boots, the boots would take on these undesirable properties. Loose, saggy and stretchy. Eventually lead to a poor quality boot.
Nobody wants a boot made from weak leather, easily stretched out of shape, wrinkled and loose.
Let’s take it one step further. Say that hypothetically somebody is an amateur leathercrafter, making smallgoods. Wallets, keychains, watch straps.
Even like that, there is still missing knowledge of what leather characteristics are needed to make a pair of boots.
A smallgoods leathercrafter likely knows about thickness, temper requirements, stretch characteristic for their own use case. They likely never buy entire hides. They likely only know leather that is sold in A4 sized sheets.
I can assure you that a cow is not made from 100 copied and pasted A4 sized sheets.
It’s not as simple as it seems.
3. Most people forget that leather is not manmade.
Closely tying into the previous point, people often forget that leather isn’t engineered, like textiles are.
A piece of fabric is almost always consistent. Whether it’s 1m, 10m or 100m in length, it will still have the same consistency (more or less).
Because, when the raw material is bought, filtered, spun and eventually turned into fabric, everything is controlled. Fibres are aligned, woven in a particular manner. Everything Is precisely calculated through years of industrial engineering experience.
And it’s done that way in order to have a product with a consistent characteristic. Replicable in every batch made.
Leather is not like this. Let’s take the fibre structure of leather to push the point a bit.
Natural leather fibres are bound in completely random directions. There’s no way to align them, unless they’re mashed up, glued together, rolled out, plastic coated and…. Oh wait.
Consistency in a natural material is vastly different to the consistency of an engineered material. Because nature just does its own thing.
Sure, each tannery will have their own recipe to churn out a consistent character of hides, But it’s not an exact science by any means.
So if somebody simply thinks that buying any random piece of leather can be made into anything, they’re dead wrong.
There’s still some understanding to be had.
Needless to say, when I let the individual know that I wouldn’t accept their leather, they were not impressed. Even with some explaining, I still don’t think they fully comprehended.
Maybe I’m a shitty communicator. This is also possible.
Judgement aside, it’s unfortunate that the knowledge of what ‘leather’ is and what ‘leather’ can be, has gone so far in the wrong direction that the majority of people just don’t know that what they do know, is simply wrong.
And for someone like me, who works everyday with the material, I really struggle to unwind this. It’s an uphill battle that can’t be explained over a paragraph of DM text.
If people really want to know what leather is, they have to do their own research and come to their own conclusion that they’ve been misled their whole life.
And if they don’t, I can only sigh and think, if people don’t want to believe me, a professional bootmaker, then who are they going to believe?
Bootmaking is part manufacturing, part art.
Don’t get me wrong, if somebody can prove to me that they have the necessary knowledge, then I’d happily take their leather to make a pair of boots.
But frankly speaking, most matured boot buyers people usually wouldn’t go down this route.
Because they understand that the leather a Bootmaker uses goes hand in hand with the design philosophy. To change some part of it, changes the identity of the boot. And that’s why they’re buying from a particular maker in the first place.
It’s like going to McDonalds and asking them to replace their beef patty with one you brought yourself. At a certain point, is it still a Big Mac anymore?
Philosophical questions aside, it was clear that the character who sent me the DM simply wanted to cut the cost of my boots, in order for him to be able to afford a pair.
It’s admirable and I appreciate the creativity. It just doesn’t align with my philosophy of bootmaking and how my business operates.
The risk now shifts to the maker.
Now let’s imagine if I’d entertained the idea. I took whatever leather that was given to me and made a pair of Wanderer boots.
Maybe the boots would be less durable. Maybe the leather wouldn’t be compatible with the other components in the build. How does it react with the cement? The iron tacks? Is the temper firm enough to hold a burnished edge?
Nothing had been tested.
So, when the boot would have prematurely failed, the blame would have been on the me, the Bootmaker.
Material is not the biggest cost. Labour is.
This is where many people get it wrong. Substituting cheaper material doesn’t necessarily bring down the price of Outstation boots.
In the long run from a customer viewpoint, likely it’d actually cost more. Because boots would need to be replaced more often due to using shitty material.
To put it simply though, materials are not the largest cost in making boots. It’s the labour.
I don’t run a factory made, mass production, churning out boots every hour type of operation.
I make boots with one pairs of hands, at a bench, over days.
Finish.
Interesting right?
I interact with a wild variety of characters on a daily basis. And almost every one is different, needing a communication approach based on their own stage of knowledge, whilst accounting for their ability to comprehend what I do versus what they think I do.
Usually from the first or second message I know relatively well if they’re a potential customer or not, and what maturity and product understanding they already have. Then I take it from there.
Anyway.
Maybe the bring-my-own-leather individual will come back as a customer one day.
Let’s see.
