How Long Should My Shoes Last?

How long my shoes should last is like asking, ‘how long is a piece of string?’ There are all kinds of expectations when it comes to shoes. The more you spend, the longer you tend to feel that they should last. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, especially when said person treats them like they are unbreakable and puts them through hell and back, expecting them to handle all adverse weather as if it was a clear, sunny day. I have seen the best shoes get broken down in 6 months and cheap shoes last 10 years. So where is the rhyme or reason? Let’s see if we can shed some light on the idea and assume we are talking about ‘dress shoes’ and not trainers.

Shoe Price: $0-$99.99

Anything in this price range is barely considered a shoe. Chances are it is not made of real leather. It is going to be entirely glued, construction-wise. It was probably pumped out by the thousands a day. It is not meant to last in reality. It is meant to cover your feet for a certain period of time, break down and then make you get a new one. That time is dependent, like anything, on how often you wear it. Most likely you are looking at 6 months to a year, if that. And that is just how long until you physically cannot wear them anymore. They will look like crap after the first few wears and because the material won’t be real leather, it will be hard to make them look any better, even with polish. Don’t expect more than a year out of these and if you do get that, consider yourself lucky.

Shoe Price: $100-$199.99

This is the spectrum where you can find either a piece of junk or quite a decent entry-level shoe. But it will greatly depend on how much research you do into what brand you are buying. If you buy the Hugo Boss cemented shoe for $200, chances are that they won’t last you more than two years. But if you buy the Ecco, you just might get 2-7 years out of them. And if you get a welted shoe like Meermin, and you treat it well, you could get 5-10 years out of them. But again, it is all greatly dependent on how often you wear them, how often you polish them, and if you use shoe trees, shoe horns etc. Chances are though, that in this category you won’t have anything longer than 10 years.

Shoe Price: $200-$399.99

If we are talking welted shoes, you can expect anywhere from 2-20 years from them, assuming you take decent care of them. If you take exceptional care of them you could have them +20 years. But that will be assuming that you rotate them, treat them kindly, give regular polishes, and watch how you wear them. Welted shoes come at different levels of quality as you may well know. Cheap Spanish/Portugese-made shoes are not going to be any better than a black stitched or even glued shoe. The leather they will use will be cheap and can break down quickly. Now if you are buying designer shoes at this price point, chances are they are blake-stitched or glued and are using mediocre leather. Due to that, they could only last you a few years at best. This is the spectrum where it really just depends on what you are buying and how you are treating them. You can get anywhere from 2-20 years out of a pair of shoes in this category if you shop right.

Shoe Price: $400 and up

This is where one expects his shoes to last a long time and chances are that they will, because you can only pay so much for a name without having any kind of quality attached to it. Even the designer rubbish at this price point is using decent leather. The mistake that people make though is assuming the shoes are invincible and then acting accordingly, thus breaking down their shoes quickly as they treat them as if they could never be broken down. This is a foolish mentality to have as leather is only that, a once living skin. It can rip, tear, break, deteriorate, age, scratch, and so forth. It is not rock. And cannot be expected to hold up like it. The more expensive leather is does not necessarily correlate to how strong it is. Cheaper, thick-cut leathers (think Red Wing shoes) can last much longer than expensive, thin-cut leather (think Annonay or many French leathers).

Therefore, like I have said numerous times before, knowing how long your shoes will last is mainly and greatly dependent upon how well you treat them. The whole garment industry is like that. If you wear expensive suits like you are wearing a jeans and t-shirt, chances are you are going to rip/blow through them. If you wear your expensive shoes daily in harsh weather, step in puddles, spill beer on them, never shine them, dry them next to the heater, don’t use a shoe horn/tree, and wear them daily, then they are going to break down quickly. And it doesn’t matter if you spent $1000 on them. But even if you do that, chances are that you will still get at least 5 years out of them, and if you treat them well, can pass them on to your children!

Examples below are of older shoes after a good shine and how if you treat your shoes right, they can last a lifetime!