Patent Application
20240298741
The present invention relates generally to shoes and more particularly, to a shoe structure that is durable, easy to maintain, attractive in appearance and low in cost.
To save manufacturing cost, the upper and the sole of a conventional shoe are usually glued together, resulting the worse durability of the shoes due to the deterioration or degumming of the glue. To solve the durability problem, an approach of stitching the upper, the insole and the sole is used, which in turn results in difficulty in replacing the sole when the sole is worn out. To solve this problem, another approach of sewing a welt with the upper and the insole first and then with the sole is used. In this way, when the sole is worn out, the sole can be easily replaced by removing the stitching thread between the welt and the sole without the need of removing the stitching thread among the welt, the upper and the insole. The shoe made in this way is durable and cost-saving, which can be treated as a win-win solution.
Because the shoe structure made by the above-mentioned way is wide accepted by consumers, the exposed stitching thread for stitching the welt and the sole becomes a sign of quality assurance. As long as the consumer sees the stitching thread on the welt of the shoe, the consumer, who acknowledges the good quality and value of the shoe, may be willing to buy the shoe at a higher price. With the development nowadays, various design modifications, such as density of the perforations of the stitching threads, the thickness of the stitching threads, arrangement of double or even multi-row stitching, can effectively enhance purchase willingness of consumers. However, behind the blind pursuit of sewing quality, there is a decrease in yield rate and a substantial increase in manufacturing cost, and the actual improvement of the structural strength of the shoe is quite limited. Therefore, how to enhance the sense of value of products in the minds of consumers without greatly increasing manufacturing costs has become an issue to be solved by the industry.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of the above-noted circumstances. It is an objective of the present invention to provide a shoe structure, which can enhance the sense of value of the product in the minds of consumers on the condition of only slightly increasing the manufacturing cost, and which has the advantages of durability, easy maintenance, aesthetic appearance and low cost.
To attain the above objective, the present invention provides a shoe structure comprising an upper, an insole, a welt, a welt stitch, a sole, a sole stitch, and a cover strip. The upper has a bottom periphery. The insole is located by an inner side of the bottom periphery of the upper, and the welt is located by an outer side of the bottom periphery of the upper. The welt stitch stitches the upper, the insole and the welt together. The sole is located below the insole and the welt, and stitched with the welt by the sole stitch. The cover strip is disposed on a top side of the welt and disposed with at least one stitching thread. As a result, the shoe structure can significantly enhance the sense of value of the product in the minds of the consumers on the condition of only slightly increasing the manufacturing cost, and has the advantages of durability, easy maintenance, aesthetic appearance and low cost.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given herein below and the accompanying drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein:
The structure and technical features of the present invention will be detailedly described hereunder by three embodiments and accompany drawings. As shown in
The upper 10 is used to envelope the top and side surfaces of the user's foot, and has a top periphery 11 forming a shoe opening, and a bottom periphery 12. The upper 10 can be provided with a layer of inner lining to enhance comfort. However, the inner lining may be omitted in practice, and the upper 10 may be made by leather or weaving material.
The insole 15 is located by an inner side 121 of the bottom periphery 12 of the upper 10. The insole 15 has a flat portion 16 for supporting or contacting the sole of the user's foot, and a downwardly extending portion 18 extends downwardly from the flat portion 16. However, in another embodiment of the present invention, the downwardly extending portion 18 may be omitted.
The welt 20 is located by an outer side 122 of the bottom periphery 12 of the upper 10, and extends along the bottom periphery 12 of the upper 10 to form an annular shape.
The welt stitch 25 stitches the bottom periphery 12 of the upper 10, the downwardly extending portion 18 of the insole 15 and the inner periphery 21 of the welt 20 together, such that the upper 10, the insole 15 and welt 20 are fixedly and firmly combined together. In another embodiment of the present invention, the welt stitch 25 may be sewn with the flat portion 16 of the insole 15, not the downwardly extending portion 18.
The sole 30 is located below the insole 15 and the welt 20. To enhance the shock absorbing effect, a cork or foam cushion layer 32 can be additionally provided between the insole 15 and the sole 30. The cushion layer 32 is surrounded by the downwardly extending portion 18 of the insole 15, and sandwiched between the insole 15 and the sole 30.
The sole stitch 35 is used to stitch the welt 20 with the lateral edge of the sole 30 in a such way that the sole stitch 35 is exposed and visible on the top side 22 of the welt 20 and the bottom side 33 of the sole 30.
The cover strip 40 is disposed on the top side 22 of the welt 20 by adhesive. An inner periphery 41 of the cover strip 40 may be adhered with the upper 10. The cover strip 40 is disposed with two stitching threads 44 arranged parallel to each other. However, the two stitching threads 44 do not combine the cover strip 40 with any element, but are exposed on the top side 42 of the cover strip 40 to be visible by people. Because the cover strip 40 covers over the sole stitch 35, and more specifically covers over the exposed part of the sole stitch 35 on the top side 22 of the welt 20, only the two stitching threads 44 can be seen by consumers when the shoe structure 1 is viewed from top side thereof. Moreover, the outer periphery 43 of the cover strip 40 is arranged to be flush with an outer periphery 23 of the welt 20, and the appearance colors and textures of the cover strip 40 and the welt 20 are made to be the same or similar. As such, consumers can hardly acknowledge from the appearance of the shoe structure 1 that there is a cover strip 40 that is arranged on the welt 20, but will only recognize that two stitching threads 44 are arranged on a combination 45 of the cover strip 40 and the welt 20.
With the above-mentioned structural design, the shoe structure 1 provided by the present invention can lead consumers to recognize the combination 45 as the welt of the conventional shoe. Because the exposed two side-by-side stitching threads 44 can significantly enhance the sense of value of the product in the minds of consumers, provision and installation of the cover strip 40 will not increase too much manufacturing cost, and providing a cover strip 40 with stitching thread 44 is much simpler than the complicated manufacturing process of setting two rows of sole stitches 35, the shoe structure 1 of the present invention has great market potential. Further, when the sole 30 is worn out and needs to be replaced, the replacement task can be easily performed by removing the cover strip 40 and then the sole stitch 35 without the need of removing the upper 10, the insole 15 and welt 20, which are combined by the welt stitch 25. As such, the shoe structure 1 of the present makes maintenance relatively simpler and easier, thereby prolonging the service life. In another aspect, the design of the cover strip 40 may be modified to enhance aesthetic effect.
As shown in
