The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1905-04-21
HIGH PRICED SHOES.
FIFTY DOLLARS NOT AN UNU-
SUAL FIGURE IN NEW YORK. y
Wealthy People with Feet Difficult
to Fit Often Pay Two to Four
Hundred Dollars for
Pair.

Mems shoes such as the wearer may
display to a critical public without fear
or shame sell in New York at prices vary
ing from $3.50 to $1,000 pair. Every
body has seen the shoes that sell at SO
or $12 pair downward. Comparatively
few have seen those that sell at 5000 4
pair upward.
Naturally shoes at $1,000 pair are
made to order. They are not necessarily
made to fit deformed feet, says the New
York Sun.
The rule of some shoemakers, like
that OF some doctors, is to charge all
that the traffic will bear. A man with 4
delicate foot and plenty of money went
to a fashionable shoemaker not long
ago for the first time, and asked the price
OF shoes. The shoemaker, after care
ful examination of the customers feet
and mental calculation as to his prob
able willingness and ability to pay a
high price, answered.:
Il will make your first pair of shoes
for $500. After that will make you a.
pair at any time and in any style
for $780,"
Shoemaker and customer compro-
missed on price about half that pro-
posed for the first pair of shoes, but the
customer made no attempt to bring
down the price of subsequent pairs. He
knew $50 pair to be the regular price
of the shop, and one that in his case at
least would not be departed from.
There are other shoemakers who
charge wealthy and fastidious custom
ers with troublesome feet $500 for the
first pair of shoes. Some hundreds of
New Workers are probably paying reg
ularly $50 for every pair of shoes that
they have made. Some of the shoemak-
ers who get such prices from rich GUS
toners make shoes for other customers
at $40 or $12 pair.
In the case Of the customers who pay
the highest price the shoe maker makes
cast of each foot, and, of course, a last
Tor each. He makes special last even
IN the case of the customer who pays
his lowest price.
Into the $50 shoes he also puts the best
workmanship and materials 1t is not
pretended that the making of the casts
and the lasts costs any large proportion
OF the price of $50 shoes. The value of
the last, however, is a considerable part
OF the cost of the cheapest shoes made
at such ashop.
Some persons believe that the greater
part of the cost of $50 pair of shoes is
mere fad and humbug, and it is true
that the purchasers of such shoes are
usually women to whom money is a mat
ter of no consequence. Some Of the most
expensive shoes, such as cost from $500
| to $1,000 for the first pair made, are Or
+ dered by hard-headed business men who
are accustomed to look pretty keenly to
the price of what they buy and sell.
few of the fashionable shoemakers
have persuaded their rich customers
that the most expensive shoes are worth
all they cost, and by curious accident
some OF the most difficult feet to fit are
those of the very rich. The multi-mil~
lionaire who wears plain and simple
B, without peculiarities' of heel, toe.
hollow or instep, can buy ready-mada
shoes along with his poor neighbor, and
be as comfortably shod as the man who
pays $50 for his shoes.