The Craftsman versus the Industrial Complex

[DWFII]

Rocky,

Two things...first, I think you paint too optimistic a picture and one that is too focused on your own particular perspectives.

On the face of it there's nothing wrong with that.

But I suspect your business is still somewhere between workshop and factory. You, the owner and founder, are still involved. Business practices still flow from your original vision and ideals. Good on you.

If I decided to hire folks and go from bespoke to RTW workshop much the same scenario would play out. All my involvement, all my notions about quality, all my intensity would force conformation to some standard well short of the factory model.

Until I retired or died.

And when that happened, if the business survived at all, the chances are great...almost approaching certainty...that the new owners would not have the knowledge, depth, or commitment to continue on in the same way.

I have seen this over and over again in the shoe industry. And many other artisanal industries--watchmaking, gunsmithing, cabinetry, tailors, the list goes on and on. And more to the point, once that commitment to highest quality regardless of price point or cost of production goes by the way, the company never goes back to making quality job one.

Once that machine comes in the door that makes Goodyear welted construction possible; once handwelting is abandoned, the workers trained in Traditional methods, who do it, who know it, are lost through layoffs or death and it becomes simply impossible to go back.

More, once a firm commits to Goodyear construction, it is no longer profitable or logical to buy firm, pit tanned insoles especially in the heavier weights required for handwelting. Of course, this represents a substantial savings for the company.

At one point fiberboard or leatherboard will be considered in lieu of leather insoles entirely. and from there fiberboard heel stacks are no big leap of logic.

And so the makers/tanners of high quality leather insoles and outsoles will face a decreasing demand and eventually the work will be moved overseas or the businesses closed down.

And no awls will be needed, no inseaming threads, no wax, no pegs, no knives, etc.. and then the grinderies will be closed down or sold to some business in a foreign country that doesn't have any cultural or emotional ties to the founders of the business.

A small digression.--more for wonder and amazement that anything else, although there is a lesson here as well.

Towards the middle and end of the 19th century, when many Trades were being industrialized (and workers were known as "wage slaves"), shoemakers...in nearly open revolt (along with spinners, weavers, and others fiber Trades)...began to do work that was almost beyond comprehension.

Prizework entered into competition at International Trade Exhibitions (also known as World's Fairs) was sometimes sewn at "64 stitches to the inch" Such work has been documented in work exhibited both in Philadelphia and in Britain by Dame June Swann, who was the Curator of the shoe collection at the Museum in Northampton, England. Ms. Swann is widely considered the foremost authority on shoes and shoe history in the world.

But think about this...64 to the inch! One cannot stitch at much smaller than 18 to the inch on a modern sewing machine with the finest point needles without postage-stamping or tearing the lather.

Yet this was all done by hand...to prove that machines could never equal the skill that a master shoemaker to bring to the game. Devlin (?), 1830(?) claims that when he did this he used a hair from his daughters head as a needle/bristle and an awl so fine that when he slipped and punctured the base of his thumb, it neither hurt nor bled.

Today there are no such masters. But even if there were, June Swann asserts that there is no leather being produced today that can equal the quality or the firmness that made this kind of work possible.

What does that tell us? Not that we need to go back to 64 to the inch...if it were even possible to go back. But that reasons we cannot even contemplate going back or appreciate the quality that once was the hallmarks of such Trades...of human enterprise...is that the weaknesses are systemic. They are in our obsession with quantity and efficiency and cheap. Our obsession--the consumer, the end user...society.

"We have met the enemy and he is us."