Narrow Shoes Selling Fast

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29871, 11 July 1962, Page 7

Narrow Shoes Selling Fast

Four Italian brothers living in Auckland have taken a very successful plunge into the men’s shoe market in New Zealand by introducing dressy, hand-detailed fashion shoes for young men in the styles and shapes which originated in Italy and found favour throughout the world.

From their efforts, and those of other small New Zealand factories looking to the same young men’s market, shoes have at last “gone long” in New Zealand.

They have not attempted to introduce the long pointed-toe look gradually, but have started right off with the most extreme styles. Sales in the six weeks have shown that this was in no way a rash move.

But there is no doubt about who is buying them. The extreme styles are being sold almost exclusively to young men up to the ages of 25 and 26 and not only to “young executives” either.

The manager of one Christchurch store said yesterday that the fact that these shoes were being sold on Thursdays and Fridays—the part of the week after pay-day—-convinced him that most of his customers in this range were young working men.

The long-shoe styles are a direct product of the fashionable narrow - look clothes, and they follow the clothing fashion in their dark colours.

Important selling features of these shoes are the unusual side-tieing lace introduced from France, an alternative double buckle on two straps—the Italian influence—and high cowboy or Cuban heels.

In all styles the front of the shoe begins lower on the foot and the toes are either pointed or finely chiselled. The high heels bring them up half an inch and the heels themselves are tapered slightly. This is said to give the

shoes a lighter line and improve the silhouette. The edges of the soles are also bevelled to give a lighter look to the shoe. Designs are simple and none of the shoes has much surface treatment.

A popular design in these new New Zealand shoes is the boot shape. Unlike the conventional boot the line slopes back from the tie at the front. Like the other shoes in this range, the bootshaped shoe is made of fine Belgian calf and is designed for wearing with a suit.

Retailers stress that these are dress shoes, from which about six months’ wear can be expected. In the past the average New Zealand man has bought two pairs of shoes a year, compared with four pairs in the United States and three pairs in Britain. The young men who are buying the new long and narrow shoes here are expected to buy about three pairs a year. These shoes cost up to £ 6 a j>air.

It has been found so far that older men, if they buy these shoes at all, prefer the chiselled toe to the pointed toe—which has gone about as far as it can go without becoming a traffic hazard. One retailer has sold a chiseltoed shoe of this style to a man aged 60.