Are fabric shoes really more durable than patent leather?

amother

Hotpink

Sun, May 10 2015, 4:26 pm

I just bought my daughter a pair of white shabbos shoes that are made out of fabric. I usually buy my daughter patent leather shoes but the woman who worked at the shoe store said that fabric would clean easier and not tear whereas patent leather shoes get dirty easier and crack more easily. Is this true?

zaq

Sun, May 10 2015, 5:19 pm

Patent leather shoes show every scratch and scuff, but you can wipe away plain old dirt and sometimes buff scuff marks away. I used to use Jubilee cleaner on patent leather but don't think this product is made any more. OTOH fabric shoes don't get scratched but they do show every little bit of dirt, and removing embedded dirt involves some heavy-duty scrubbing with a brush unless the shoes are machine washable. Patent eventually cracks but you can prevent that by polishing with petroleum jelly to keep it from drying out. In any event, assuming we are talking about a young child and you are not going to hand the shoes down to a younger sibling, you are really talking about all told one season, after which she will have outgrown the shoes anyway. Cracking patent leather is really not an issue. The saleslady handed you a crock, probably because she wanted to sell you these shoes instead of the others. Fabric shoes won't tear? Baloney. If your dd trips over barbed wire or tries to dig her way to China using the toes of her shoes as a drill, those shoes will tear, all right. I guess the saleslady has never seen torn sneakers.

Notsobusy

Sun, May 10 2015, 9:30 pm

I find that fabric shoes stain much faster than patent leather. They are also usually impossible to clean. But being that I never spend more than $20 on my kids Shabbos shoes, I buy the fabric ones if they really like them better than anything else. Like zaq said, at that age they're only wearing them for one season anyhow.