With all this wet weather it would be good to shed some light on the pros and cons of Dainite versus leather soles for your footwear:
Leather soles:
Traditionalists of course will tend to favour a leather sole since that is what is often expected on a good pair of goodyear welted shoes. Leather soles can be easily re-soled by either the factory who made them or by your local quality shoe repairer. However there are many different grades of leather used for men’s soles and although they may all look the same to the inexperienced eye there can be huge differences in durability. Essentially a tighter grain will wear much better than a looser grained hide. The hardest wearing sole leather is known as oak bark whereby the hides are buried in a mixture of acorns and oak bark for a couple of years. It’s the natural tanins in this soup which make the leather so durable.
In my opinion the main downside of a leather sole is that they do need to dry out well between outings since wet leather tends to wear much quicker than dry leather. However there is also the traction issue as new leather soles can be terribly slippery. Also when leather soles get very thin water can begin to penetrate.
Dainite rubber soles:
Dainite soles on the other hand are very hard wearing, offer really good traction and won’t allow water ingress even when worn very thin. However it is very important that a leather welt is used with a goodyear welted shoe or boot. Welts can be made out of plastic and although these are hard to spot they are very unpopular amongst shoe repairers who struggle to penetrate them with their needles. Essentially if the item of footwear is from a good brand then the welt should be leather. Importantly Dainite soles can be the same thickness as leather soles so in these instances from above it is difficult to tell the difference.
So when it comes to Dainite versus leather soles in my opinion Dainite wins hands down. This is reflected I the fact that all the great English brands now offer an extensive range of Dainite rubber soled shoes and boots.
