LIZARD SKIN SHOES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25245, 25 July 1947, Page 4

LIZARD SKIN SHOES

MANUFACTURE IN CHRISTCHURCH

Lizard skin and reptile skin shoes, which have not been manufactured in New Zealand for about 10 years, are now being made by several New Zealand firms. A representative of a Christchurch firm engaged in making lizard skin shoes said yesterday that the demand for the shoes rose and fell regularly. The shoes had come into fashion again recently. New Zealand fashions followed those of the United States and Europe at an interval of about nine months.

The Christchurch company uses skins which came originally from India and North Africa. Before the war, skins also came from several other countries. After the lizards are killed, they have to be preserved and then treated. As far as he knew, no New Zealand tanneries treated reptile skins. One of the principal types of skin used by the firm came from the oval grain plain Indian lizards, found chiefly in Calcutta, and fine grain lizards from Agra and Karachi. Both the fine grain and bold grain lizards live underground most of the time, and are washed out and killed during the monsoon season. In Java a ring marked variety was found, and a type with similar characteristics was exported from North Africa.

The parent lizard breeds about three times a year, and on each occasion the two, three, or four eggs are hatched by the sun, lizards reproducing themselves many times in a season.