Walk A Day In My Shoes...Try 500 Days!

I have been wearing these same boots everyday for 500 days straight. 

This might sound odd for a shoe designer. I have access to any shoe I could possibly want. And there are at least a score of styles in the Vein Wear collection I would love to be wearing at any one time. So why wear just one pair, every day, for well over a year?

To test the durability of course. This kind of information is very difficult to come across. You can get 'wear tests' done, where you pay for someone to walk around in your shoes (literally) but they average only 30 days. And you can do durability tests on components similar to the machine repetitively squishing the chair in Ikea. But to get accurate information on how a shoe wears in the day to day life of a normal person, you just have to do it yourself.

So I have worn these boots for the past 500 days. It has meant that my wardrobe has been slightly limited. And they probably weren't appropriate at the weddings I attended. Forgive me, I was on a mission.

I worked in an office and in the retail store. I walked around the markets and the shopping strips on the weekend. I went out to bars and clubs. I danced (poorly) at weddings. I stumbled around the Hunter Valley wineries. I pounded the pavement in Sydney and Melbourne. 

Like the Proclaimers before me I vowed to walk 500 miles, and 500 miles, just to be the man who walked a thousand miles. Which converts to 1,609km. I conservatively estimate I walked over 5,000 steps or 4km a day when it is averaged out. So the total distance walked was about 2,000km. Making me the man that walked a thousand miles and then kept going.

I made sure not to give them much extra care along the way. That way I could observe the wear as most guys would experience it. I didn't scotch-guard them. Or treat the suede. I tried to stay out of the rain where possible and jumped puddles. I gave them the odd brush to wipe away any serious dirt. If they got wet I let them dry and wiped away water from the soles at the end of the day. I didn't use shoe trees or shoe horns.

So how did they fare? The upper leather integrity came through perfectly. No stitching came apart. They feel great. The soles never came apart from the upper at all. They look excellent.

The soles are the standard Vein Wear 4mm rubber soles. They look fine and there are no holes or cracks in them. Of course they definitely need a re-sole now, and I pushed well past when they 'should' have been re-soled.

At just after the one year mark, I had them re-heeled and needed to add some rubber to the toe area of the sole. This cost about $25.00 in materials. 

I cleaned and tarted them up for the 'after' photos. Have a look below.

The boots cost $269.00 and the repairs $25.00, so the total cost after 500 days was $294.00. That works out to less than 59 cents per day of wear. Not bad, considering I probably spent nearly $2,000 on coffee during the same period!

The lesson I've learnt from this experience is that Vein Wear makes awesome shoes. If you treat them with a modicum of care, they will treat you extraordinarily well. And high quality items really are less expensive in the long run. I'm going to keep wearing these boots. Just not every day. And every day I wear them, that 59 cents per day of wear gets cheaper.

I certainly don't recommend you wear your shoes in this way. This was a durability test. You don't want to push your fashion shoes to any kind of extremes. Wear them between 5 and 15 times a month. Alternate with another pair of shoes. Re-heel them regularly. Re-sole them as early as possible. Use shoe trees and shoe horns. Clean and water-proof them.

I can't wait to wear another stlye of shoe! Vein Store, here I come...