Replacing your factory footwear insoles with third-party products can be hit or miss. Insoles are often built around a native piece of material that goes perfectly with that particular shoe. I have a great pair of Zamberlan Trekker boots. After a year or so, the insole fabric started to separate from the insole mold. I brought them to East Village Shoe Repair, where Boris replaced the fabric with soft leather cut from an old jacket.
An old soft leather jacket is about to have the arm material become replacement insoles
This operation took about as long as it takes to boil a pot of water. Now I have better insoles than I could have ever bought off the racks. Nothing beats a leather insole, but many of our favorite kicks don’t come with them. I treated them with a very small amount of Obenauf’s leather preservative- now I’m ready to go on a trek. Big shout out to East Village Shoe Repair (now located in Brooklyn, NY). You might want to have this procedure done on some of your kicks.
East Village Shoe Repair is located on 1083 Broadway in Brooklyn, New York attached to the Brandhunters fashion complex.