Repair and restoration trades a dying art
Dubliner Des O’Neill started as a cobbler back in 1960 when a pair of shoes cost a couple of week’s wages.
But now O’Neill, who opened the well known The Mad Irish Cobbler in New Plymouth in 1984, says shoes are cheap and disposable and often not worth the time or money to repair.
It’s a growing trend many trades are battling as household items become cheaper to throwaway and replace than to pay to repair.
Where electricians once trained specifically to repair household appliances, you can now replace a toaster for as little as $12.
For O’Neill it has meant he’s had to adapt to survive and while he still fixes shoes his business is now called The Mad Irish Key Man.
‘‘The key side of the business has taken over because we specialise in locksmithing for cars.
‘‘We had to change when the shoes sort of went down and cars came out with much more expensive sophisticated keys.’’
While O’Neill said many people still invested in quality
leather shoes and respected them, when he was a kid they were made to last.
He remembers when he first moved to New Zealand and his wife’s new shoes would cost her a week’s wages. Now, they cost about the equivalent of a couple of hours’ work, he said.
‘‘People would repair and repair and repair them because they didn’t want to spend two or three week’s wages.
‘‘Now they’re really cheap, they’re made out of cheap materials, and they’re not worth spending an hour of labour, fixing a pair of shoes, when you can go and buy another pair for 50 or 60 bucks.’’
Cheap replacements have also hit dry-cleaning and clothes repair business La Nuova hard.
Mike Dudson, dry-cleaning operations manager, said it was a hard sell to try to get people to repair a $3 shirt they had from bargain chain stores.
‘‘People who buy higher-end items might justify repairs, but we’re fighting that cheap market,’’ he said.
‘‘Fashion has changed; we live in a fast-fashion world.’’
The business’ bread and butter was dry-cleaning suits, shirts, and gowns. But even that has declined.
‘‘Dry-cleaning pre-1980s was huge, there would have been seven or eight in New Plymouth but as commercial washing machines have got better business has declined,’’ he said.
‘‘We’re still going strong, but there’s certainly been a decline and that’s just people’s attitudes.’’
Andrew Beale, co-owner of Taranaki Appliance Services, said the numbers of repairs from when he started in 2004 to now was drastically different.
‘‘Things like small appliances are quite often just not viable to repair now, to be able to get the parts and to be able to get into it and repair it without damaging it is not really a possibility,’’ he said.
Beale admits trying to change people’s attitudes about buying quality items and getting things repaired rather than throwing them away was frustrating.
‘‘There’s a big push for recycling these days but in my eyes repairing is recycling,’’ he said.
‘‘If you’re buying a good quality machine, you’re paying for one, so you may have to repair, but generally, you’re getting 10 to 15 years out of it. Whereas if you’re buying a cheap machine, you’re paying for it three or four times in 10 years, and then you’ve got three machines in the landfill.’’