Shoes used to be made of leather. You polished them every Saturday night and they would last 15-20 years. The laces would eventually wear out and your local shoe repair shop had replacements. The cobbler would also put half-soles on your leather shoes when you wore a hole in them.

Today, most shoes are either plastic, or leather from china which is so cheap it's better to throw them out and buy new ones than replace the shoe laces. Times change. When is the last time you saw a shoe repair shop?

However, I still have some good shoes and I found it worth while to buy a dozen or so of each type I use. There are a number of places on the web that still sell them but you have to buy in quantity. I think the shoe laces are all hand-rolled in China as well [g].