Word: leatherous
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
Sean followed Francis in name and profession. He served an apprenticeship as stunt man, grip, cameraman and finally director. At first he was merely a foreman, grinding out bathetic stories of cowpokes in leather and gals in gingham. But with The Iron Horse (1924), Ford was abruptly thrust into the front ranks of American film makers. In the tale of a son's search for his father's murderer, Ford composed a stark sagebrush Odyssey that was to echo in almost all his later work. The forces of nature and fate were given substance; the backdrop of plains...