Quote Originally Posted by Java View Post
If the couple hundred thousand people in the world that can afford $1200 shoes want to wear them, that's fine, but they need to remember that there are close to 7 billion of us out here that can't afford them, and if all "real" shoes cost that much, then we would all be shoeless.

As for the question, I would like to see more of the cotton/poly and canvas contemporary kilts available with wider more traditional looking aprons.

Have Fun,
Java
When all shoes were handmade...before plastics and cardboard and glue replaced Traditional methods...and as recently as the late 1800's, a really high quality shoe may have run $100.00.

Think about that...and people think they should still be able to buy a good pair of shoes for $100.00. How's that happen? Who's fooling who? What kind of mind-set/rationale makes people think or demand that?

And what's a 19th century C note in today's money?

Being able to afford things today...if you really and truly want quality...is the same as it was in 1880. It is a matter of setting realistic priorities and saving for them or working for them simply because you have a recognition of what quality is and why it has value.

And that is about as far as you can get from our modern I'm-entitled-and-I've-got-to-have-it-now, short-attention-span culture.

"Cheap" doesn't start in the pocketbook...it starts in the heart--in an indifference to what makes life valuable and worth living. It starts with a lack of understanding and respect for those things that connect us and make us human. Devaluing manual labour--the Trades--devaluing the connection between the heart and the hand (as is standard in any industrial setting), all contribute.

And from there it spreads to every corner of our lives such that we so become pinched in spirit and perception that we cannot...will not...allow ourselves to recognize quality or worth, in goods or in idea or in people..

We don't all have to wear $1000.00 bespoke, hand made kilts, or $7000.00 bespoke, fully canvased suits or $300.00 shirts or even $5000.00 bespoke shoes (which is where the top end really is)--priorities are different for everybody. But to the extent that we cannot even recognize the intrinsic quality and worth of such items...won't allow ourselves to even acknowledge the worth of the work or skill that goes into them...we are poorer than if we had spent the same amount of money on title to the Golden Gate Bridge.