Shoes look young again when you give them love

Repairing your shoes instead of buying and throwing away is a great way of becoming a sustainable consumer.

Shoes are my thing. That used to mean I bought a lot of them. A lot. And as a teenager, I never even thought of repairing them! Growing up, I’ve definitely improved. In the past years I’ve spent significantly more money on repairing shoes than buying new ones. Now I appreciate the shoes I have and take care of them, instead of throwing them away to get new ones.

I found a lovely shoe repair shop in the Sörnäinen area of Helsinki. The service I got at Kinaporin suutari shoemaker was great and the prices were affordable! Why do I bother mentioning this particular shoemaker? Just as a contrast – in central Helsinki I asked another shoemaker to do some maintenance and he said it’s too difficult to do and asked for a much higher price. Not very business minded of him, I think! Luckily, I found this place. The great thing is, that when you find a really nice place you always know where to bring your shoes when they need some repairing!

They probably will need some repairing. Shoes always wear out, that’s just how it is. Really good quality does it slower but if you really want to have them last for a while: you need to have some maintenance done on them. The heel wears down especially fast. The black shoes in the middle of the picture are bought secondhand but they are originally from H&M. As you can see in the pictures below, the heel was in quite bad shape. If I would have walked in them for much longer without having the heel replaced, the shoes would soon have been totally ruined. So the trick is to check the condition of your shoes often enough and not let them ever become total disasters! My Timberlands are just going in for a little wash and the boot shaft will be made narrower.

If you’ve watched any documentary like Cowspiracy, you know how bad leather is for the environment. All the shoes in the picture are made of leather and I have really been thinking that in the future, I’ll avoid buying leather shoes. Therefore, it’s even more important for me to take care of the shoes I already have! I’ll update in a couple of weeks showing what they ended up looking like after their makeover.

Show your worn out shoes some love, save some environmental resources and bring them to a shoemaker for a repair or a maintenance!

Do you usually repair you shoes? if not, why not? Please comment below in either Swedish, Finnish or English!