A modern twist

Duan spent the following three years visiting shoe experts in Shanghai municipality, Hubei, Shanxi and Zhejiang provinces and learning various techniques to complement his own.

He combed through more than 80 shoemaking techniques and studied and compared them before making changes to combine their strength and ensure a more comfortable wearing experience.

First, he needed to upgrade the look of the shoes to cater to the needs of modern consumers. "After all, shoes in the past were made out of old rags and applied way more stitches than what is necessary for today's circumstances," he says. "It resulted in toughness at the cost of comfort."

After constant experimenting, he found the golden mean.

"Taking size 40 shoes as an example, the standard for the shoe top is 95 to 96 stitches. It will not be practical nor aesthetically pleasing if the stitches are too dense or sparse," he says.

He also spent great effort searching for raw materials that were hard to come by in his rural home long before e-commerce was available.

He had to travel far and wide to find such materials as stretchable fabric and eyelets (usually reinforced with metal rings as a way to thread cords through) in Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanxi provinces.

"It was really an ordeal, but fortunately I didn't give up," he says.

His work eventually garnered the interest of several shoe plant owners, who entrusted him with big orders.

In 2012, Duan established his cloth shoemaking company in Gaozhuang village. He made a point of keeping essential traditional methods while innovatively integrating embroidery and other elements.

As a result, he developed a series of products that cater to different customers, ranging from children to the elderly, and his exquisite craftsmanship and rich style earned his products interest from the high-end market.

"Many of my customers are scholars and college professors, who pursue comfort," he says, adding that a considerable number of these customers have opted for his shoes out of a sense of nostalgia.

Duan's wife Chen Na made a tough decision and quit her teaching job to help him. "The orders were piling up and he was working around the clock. I felt impelled to help," Chen says.

Now she's also engaged in the handicraft and has even branched out to make bags with similar craftsmanship.

In 2017, the Duan family's cloth shoe craftsmanship was named an intangible cultural heritage of Ruyang county and a time-honored brand. At the same time, it was rated among the most popular tourism products in Henan's Luoyang city by the tourism and consumer departments.