Nontrivial pursuits
Take the high-speed train down from mountain-rimmed Seoul to coastal Busan and you cannot fail to spot South Korea’s trek-ready, hilly terrain, which winds itself up and down the country like a spine. Hiking culture is deeply entrenched, as is an ethos of having the ‘right’ gear. For green-minded brands like Treksta, the repairability of equipment goes hand in hand with this embrace of the wild.
Mountains move the South Korean imagination in a special, even sacred way. According to local folklore, Dangun, the mythical god-king founder of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, was born on the slopes of Mount Paektu, an active volcano along today’s Chinese-North Korean border. Considered to be the spiritual home of Koreans, therefore, the idea of Paektu (and its Heaven Lake) plays a significant role in the spiritual culture of the two contemporary Korean states. Paektu is even referenced by both countries’ national anthems.
On a more material plane, leisure time in mountainous South Korea is, for many, all about scaling new, rugged heights. Previously the domain of the middle-aged and older, the mountaineering spirit is increasingly gaining ground among younger Koreans, particularly as a conveniently socially distanced pandemic pastime. Covid or no covid, though, the country’s hiking culture is so prevalent that two-thirds of its citizens own a pair of hiking boots and head for a mountain at least once a year, The Economist says. Around a third go once a month.
In 2018, South Koreans collectively spent about $2.3 billion on hiking gear – that is more than the famously image-conscious nation (it is the home of K-beauty or Korean beauty, after all) spent on cosmetics. The Washington Post has gone so far as to describe this phenomenon as akin to a new national identity.
From self-care to aftercare
Serious pursuits require considered equipment. South Koreans are renowned for wearing around $1,000 worth of hiking garb apiece for a summer trek (potentially double that during winter, the Post claims). In this climate, domestic outdoors brand Treksta, founded in 1988, has offered a lifetime repair service for its hiking footwear for over 20 years. Brand manager, Keun Kwon, tells World Leather that she believes Treksta was the first South Korean outdoor company to provide buyers with such a guarantee, in a similar vein to local electrical companies such as Samsung before it. As a result of its after-sales repair care, the brand was recently named an “excellent” service company by its home nation’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy for the eighteenth consecutive year. Eventual repairability is built into the design process at an initial stage, Ms Kwon says, so that only durable materials that can be repaired, such as leather, are selected. “We want to make the best product that people can truly appreciate for their entire lifetime,” she says. Reportedly, Treksta handles around 200 pairs of previously worn shoes for repairs each day. The brand’s customers are mostly long-term devotees.
As the repair process naturally differs from customer to customer, depending on how – and how much – they wear their shoes, it is difficult to quantify the length of time each repair will take, but the whole process is usually completed within one to three weeks. Repairs can be much more complicated than production according to Ms Kwon. Some of the Treksta shoes sent to the repairs centre were initially assembled around 30 years ago, so finding the right materials to fix them can be tricky. In many cases, sourcing a similar material is the only way forward. Only in “special cases” are shoes considered beyond repair, Ms Kwon states. “The reason we built this system is because we were sure that we could make the best product,” she states.
Green outlook
Going forward, Treksta is taking an eco-friendly approach to material research and development; however Ms Kwon acknowledges the difficulty of achieving the same function and durability, both highly necessary for outdoor pursuits, in footwear with recycled materials. The brand has also explored using a type of polyester that uses less water in the fabric-dyeing process, though. It is also currently developing a new collection which incorporates yarn made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (r-PET) bottles, in order to lessen its negative environmental impact. It would, however, be difficult to replace leather, Ms Kwon says.
As an outdoor brand, sustainability and protecting the natural world are key elements of Treksta’s mission. It has been running its litter-picking Green Campaign alongside South Korea’s national parks for over 10 years. An inevitable consequence of more people frequenting scenic spots is an increase in the traces left behind, so Treksta instigated a movement which involves its brand ambassadors supplying walkers with rubbish bags at the entrances to national parks.
On exiting the park, hikers are invited to weigh the litter they have collected. They are then rewarded with credit, proportionate to the amount of litter picked up, which can either be put towards the cost of car parking at the park or the purchase of new gear via Treksta’s website. Putting such an ecosystem in place was “the least we could do for nature,” Ms Kwon tells us.
High performance, comfortable footwear may be essential to functioning well on the mountain, then, but so too is a healthy regard for the long-term impact of the shoes and of their wearers.
An artisan undertakes a leather repair.
All credits: Treksta
