So, over at 43folders, I read some comments about some “wisdom for yokels” sort of book wherein one of the claims was that having three pairs of shoes rotated appropriately (I assume daily) would result in shoes that lasted longer than someone who bought five pairs of shoes and wore each pair until they ran out.
Now, I’m taking this literally, so perhaps that’s my problem, but I’m having a hard time undersanding why this would be true. AFAIK, shoes don’t “heal” (heh) in between wearings. The only thing I can think of is that once a shoe gets to a particular stage of wear, all wear afterwards accelerates and that somehow this magic shuffle…OK, I can’t figure it out at all.
It’s not that the shoes “heal” on the off days; it’s that they “dry.” Your foot-sweat, even if you have a sedentary lifestyle, makes your shoes moist, which accelerates wear. Give them 24 or 48 hours to dry, and they’ll last longer.
The fact that shoes dry out if they’re rotated rather than worn every day is sometimes used to explain why men’s ‘feet’ often smell worse than women’s. (It’s not the feet themselves that smell bad; it’s bacteria growing on the socks and shoes.) Since many men wear the same pair of shoes every day, their shoes never get a chance to fully dry out, and the foul-smelling bacteria can thrive. Women are more likely to rotate between different pairs, so the ones they aren’t wearing have time to dry out and kill the bacteria. The types of shoes and socks and the sweatiness of the feet are also factors. But there’s another reason to rotate between several pairs of shoes – they’ll smell better.