Earlier, leather was a major constituent of a shoe i.e. upper, lining, soling
etc. were all made up of leather. Footwear industry started looking to
other substitute material due to-
Shortage of skins and hides and its
consequent high price
Substitute materials offered better
properties in manufacture and wear which leather could not offer, e.g.
synthetics are relatively uniform in thickness, surface and physical
properties and are available in continous roll form.
Substitute materials are cheaper to
produce.
Keeping in view the abovementioned features of
substitute and bottlenecks of leather , it was necessary to invent the
substitute of Leather. This has lead to the invention of
Thermoplastics. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) is also a thermoplastic,
widely accepted substitute of leather