I walk a lot, but I’m pretty easy on shoes and a pair typically lasts two years or more. So when my new pair of shoes started falling apart after just a few weeks (and right after the 30-day return period) I had to make a choice between replacing them and fixing them. The eyelets had started pulling apart from main body of the shoe. Each time I tightened the laces, the rip grew.

The shoes were reasonably priced, so I could afford to replace them. But I’d bought this brand (though not this model) for years, and they had all worn well. And I’d also suspected, before I bought them, that missing reinforcement on the eyelets might be a weak point. So, I felt partially responsible. And, except for the rip, they still looked brand new. So I thought (hoped) that I might be able to devise a durable, attractive fix for a lot less than the cost of a new pair of shoes.

The structural problem was that the laces could no longer hold tension on the side of the shoe and keep it on my foot. Any fix had to make a new place for the laces to attach, and those attachment points needed to be securely distribute their load to the rest of the shoe. And it should be durable and—ideally—not look awful.

Fortunately the split was along a seam which made it mostly straight and would help disguise what I was up to. It also revealed the layers of the shoe material. The outer black leather (or maybe ”leather”) layer was supposed to bear most of the tension, but had failed here. The tan inside layer was breathable mesh to make the shoe comfortable, but had little strength. Between them was a layer of white interfacing impregnated with heat-activated glue to hold everything together.

I found that just poking a finger between the layers was enough to separate the interfacing and glue, all the way down to the sole. The stitching visible on the outside only held together the black elements. Separating the layers gave me a chance to insert my own material snugly in between, where it would be out of sight from the outside, cushioned from the inside, and provide a lot of contact area for robust fastening.

Leather is the traditional material for shoe repair, but the only piece I had on hand was super thick and rigid, intended for belts, and I didn’t feel like splitting it. (Plus it was the wrong color.) I discovered the split was exactly 2” wide, the very width of some black nylon strapping that I did have on hand and which I know is super durable—and much easier to get a needle through than leather.