The other evening, for some reason, the YouTube algorithm sent some videos my way by a guy named Cobbler G. Now I love a good cobbler and have taken favourite shoes to be re-heeled numerous times over the years, so my curiosity was roused and I decided to watch one of his videos on the subject of restoring some Loake boots that the owner couldn't get repaired elsewhere.
Well, one video led to another and then came a pair of boots that were in a very sorry state and had never been cleaned or conditioned the whole time they'd been owned. It was when the cobbler got out the saddle soap that I had a lightbulb moment, with regard to some favourite boots of mine, that in recent years have fallen into disrepair.
The boots in question, are a pair of leather ASOS Chelsea boots that I bought years ago, not sure how many, but I've had them a good while and they are super comfortable and a classic design that never really goes out of fashion. I've worn them a lot, but in the last two years they got relegated to work boots, probably because they were so comfortable and when you're on your feet for 5,6,7 hours, you need comfortable footwear.
The nature of the job I was doing in retail, meant that I often had to get down on my knees and tidy or re-stock low shelves, and as a consequence the toes of the boots got very scratched and worn, making them look very scruffy.
I'd more or less resigned myself to the fact that they were on their last legs and would probably be relegated to wearing at the allotment or something until they fell apart. I'd even replaced them with some non-leather boots in the same style, but I just don't reach for them. They're just not as comfortable as my faithful old friends.
I felt guilty, as I haven't really looked after them in recent years, the best I did was to give them a wipe over with some leather wipes, which didn't really do much for them but clean off the dirt. Here's a picture of what they looked like at the start:
Anyway, back to the videos. After watching them, I decided that maybe I could actually keep these boots in circulation if I gave them a proper polish. We have a shoe cleaning kit, but it had been relegated to the back of a cupboard in the kitchen and hadn't seen the light of day for a good few years, so I dragged it out to see what we had in there. It's a reasonably extensive kit, with lots of brushes, polishes, suede cleaners/brushes, shoelaces and shoe stretching sprays. Here's a picture of it:
I dug out some Dales Dubbin in black and immediately set to cleaning my boots. I rubbed lots of the stuff in with a cloth, paying most attention to the toes.
To be honest, this polish, out of all of the ones we had still looked okay, some of them looked pretty dried up, but I think they may still be usable.
It was a very nostalgic process. I can remember polishing my shoes a lot as a child, it's just what we were taught to do. Our parents couldn't afford to be buying new shoes all the time, unless we grew out of them, of course and they were made to last in those days. No cheap fast fashion then.
I also remember regularly visiting the little cobbler's shop in the centre of the village where we lived. I loved it in there. I loved the smell, the tickets and the tools and the shoes waiting to be collected. It was like a little magic cave. It's so sad that there are so few of these guys around these days. I made a point of searching on Google for the nearest traditional cobbler to where I live in London, as the one I used to go to closed down during Covid and never re-opened. At least I now know where to go, when I need some shoes re-heeling.
Back to the task in hand, after rubbing on the polish, this is how they looked:
They already looked so much better, like there was life left in them yet. I left them for a while to dry a bit and then went in with a medium firm shoe brush to take off most of the excess polish. This was followed up with a soft brush and then finally a buff with a cloth to reveal the final result:
I was so happy with how they turned out. They're not like new or anything and if you look closely, you can still see scuffing and scratches, but they are so much more presentable. They won't last forever, sadly, as the soles will eventually go and they're not the sort that can be replaced, I don't think, but even if I get another couple of years out of them I'll be happy.
There was then just one more thing left to do, which was to put some inner soles in them, as the original inner soles were wearing thin. I had some that I could cut to size and insert and then the transformation was finished. It felt like a job well done.
It's funny how you get out of old habits of looking after things when life gets busy, but it brings so much satisfaction when you resume them again and get to keep things going for as long as possible.
I might see if there's anymore shoes I can work magic on.
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