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Originally Posted by PtotheB
Our shoes that we wear with our dress and some service uniforms are made of a substance called Corfram mentioned earlier in this post. It is far more comfortable and breathable than old patent leather.
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Actually, Corfam (a duPont product) does not breath well even though it is considered a poromeric. I just about grew up in a kid tannery, so when I brought home a pair of Corfam shoes (for inspection only, USN), my dad just looked at me with a blank stare. Turns out, the tannery had some low level of involvement in part of the processing towards the end of production, so they made at least a little money against lost income. Actually, I probably wore them less than 50 times as my feet sweat and they were not comfortable.
Here is a brief on the product:
Corfam was the first
poromeric imitation leather, invented by
Lee Hollowell, and introduced by
DuPont in 1963 at the
Chicago Shoe Show. Corfam was the centerpiece of the DuPont pavilion at the
1964 New York World's Fair in
New York City. Its major advantages over natural
leather were its durability and its high gloss finish that could be easily cleaned with a damp cloth. Its disadvantages were its stiffness which did not lessen with wearing and its relative lack of breathability. DuPont manufactured Corfam at its plant in
Old Hickory, Tennessee from 1964 to 1971. After spending millions of
dollars marketing the product to shoe manufacturers, DuPont withdrew Corfam from the market in 1971 and sold the rights to a company in
Poland. Corfam is mainly remembered as a textbook marketing disaster.
The
1966 Chilean issue of
Reader's Digest claimed that by
1983 there would not be enough leather from cows, demand exceeding supply by 30%.
Corfam is still used today in some products, an example being certain types of equestrian saddle
girth. Corfam shoes are still very popular in the military and other uniformed professions where shiny shoes are an asset.