Synthetic Rebirth

Two years ago, synthetic leather seemed likely to appear in business histories only as an example of a rare product-development blunder by Du Pont. Corfam, its much touted leather lookalike, brought out in 1964, was expected to do for shoes what nylon had done for stockings. But demand never rose as much as Du Pont had hoped, partly because consumers complained that Corfam shoes pinched and roasted their feet. By 1971 Du Pont admitted defeat and wrote off the effort as a $100 million bust. Now it appears that Du Pont's real mistake was giving up too soon. Under new parentage, the seemingly dead synthetic leather business has been reincarnated as a thriving, though still modest, industry.

Corfam's trade name now belongs to George Newman & Co., of Boston (estimated 1972 sales: $12 million), a wholesaler of the product in the Du Pont days, which bought a license to use the name and unsold inventory for $6,000,000. President George Newman, 33, reports that he has sold most of the huge stock of Corfam "poromeric" (from porous) leather that he bought from Du Pont and began producing NewmanCorfam in his firm's own factory last January. Though Newman has experienced some technical problems, the young Corfam owner claims that he expects to sell 15 million sq. ft. this year, enough to make 7.5 million pairs of shoes.

Nor is Corfam the only supposedly defunct leather substitute to be resurrected. Production rights to Jentra, a former Corfam rival that was developed by Tenneco and then shelved, have recently been sold to a U.S.-Japanese combine, which is manufacturing it in Moonachie, N.J. Clarino, exported by Japan's Marubeni Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of poromerics, fizzled under the sponsorship of an American distributor in the '60s, but is now being successfully marketed in the U.S. by a Marubeni subsidiary.

The long-predicted leather shortage that sparked Du Pont's interest in a leather substitute has finally arrived. Worldwide demand for leather is rising faster than the supply of hides. As a result, prices on some grades of hides have leaped as much as 110%. At the same time, worldwide demand for leather is escalating as living standards rise. "Peasants in Africa now buy new shoes every two years instead of every four," Newman says. "People in Eastern Europe want bright, colorful leather shoes and jackets." Footwear-industry analysts expect leather to drop from 62% to 50% of the U.S. shoe market over the next two years. The gap will be divided mainly between poromerics and cheaper but nonporous synthetics. Exults Newman: "Everything Du Pont anticipated has finally happened."

Makers claim that they have increased the comfort of the new poromerics by doing without the fabric interlayers used to back the first generation of artificial leathers. Those interlayers made the material thick and stiff. Consumers shod in Du Font's product inspired the wisecrack, "Corfam shoes always look brand new; they always feel brand new too."

For American shoemakers, poromerics offer production efficiencies that could be critical in the industry's losing battle with cheap imports. Since artificial leather is made in uniform rolls, it can be cut with less waste than irregular hides. Shoes made from poromerics are priced up to 20% cheaper than comparable leather shoes.

Du Pont officials profess to be undisturbed by the success of their castoff, claiming they did well to dump an expensive failure. Of course, they might feel otherwise if the Corfam shoe were still on their foot.

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