Leather soles & public bathrooms

[runners n jeans]

Does it gross anyone else out when you are wearing leather soled shoes & walk into a public restroom and notice that there's piss all over the floor, and you just know that at every step your leather soles are absorbing it?


I know the soles are intended to get dirty, after all you're walking on them, but they absorb anything wet that you step on...

[trash]

You're probably stepping in all sorts of stuff outside anyway, but yeah it's gross. Which is why I don't wear shoes inside my apartment

[nicholascrawford]

Maybe when they're new, but after a while, the soles get hard and crusty. The amount absorbed has got to be minute.


Consider the danger of wearing an unwashed hat. It picks up pollutants and contaminants and bacteria and viruses all day, never gets washed, and stays up against your skin all day - no socks there. Does that make you feel better about leather soles?

[jordan]

The only public bathrooms i find to be really reprehensible are those in bars, and I don't tend to wear my nicer shoes in bars. Moreso for the spillage, but also the fact the bathrooms are like wading through a river of whiz.

[ChrisW]

A couple of things:


@nicholascrawford, what do you do with your hats that exposes them to pollutants, contaminants, bacteria and viruses all day?


Apart from the aesthetic qualities, what is the real advantage of a leather sole? My feet don't get too hot in rubber soled shoes, so I wonder why I would not go with the material which is more durable and costs less.

[nicholascrawford]

Daily life! Every time you put a hat on, it's got all that stuff in it. But we have an immune system for a reason, and I'm the kind of person who picks up food off the sidewalk if I drop it. Hard to scare me on that front.

[jordan]

Chris, i assume looks...but i almost feel like the leather sole is there so they can tell if you walked around in the shoe or not (making it used) since it immedaitely scuffs.

[Chareth]

The real advantage of leather soles at this point is the tradition and history behind it; they are the standard for dress shoes because that's how it was always done. Leather soles are certainly not used to determine shoe usage.


People on various forums try to ascribe near mystical qualities to leather soles, and by extension any shoe at and above the AE/Alden level, most of which is simply untrue. Your shoe upper won't disintegrate after three months for lack of "breathing" if you have a rubber sole, nor will the leather rot from the inside out. If you have rubber-soled shoes, all you have to do is treat them as gently as you would a more expensive pair and they will last a long time.

[Chareth]

To address the original question, leather or rubber, if you're stepping in piss, you're still bringing it home either way.

[nicholascrawford]

Leather soles appear more dressy/formal than rubber soles.


Like many things, the more practical they are, the less formal they are.

[runners n jeans]

@Chareth: Very true. But it's in your mind more when you see the leather stained wet and remain wet for a longer period of time than rubber soles where the moisture just seems to "magically go away" soon after