Footwear - Leather - PPE Industry News & Articles

Q&A with Ndlela Mazibuko, BBF Safety Group sales managerHow well has the safety footwear market held up over the past 18 months? Are there any noticeable changes in the quantities your customers are buying, in the price points that they're buying, or in the end customers that they're supplying? (e.g. is mining down but some other sect ...more

Eugene du Toit, BBF Safety Group technical managerTo start, we’d like to acknowledge the work the NRCS is doing with regards to safety footwear and the PPE categories they regulate.  The enormity of the task is sometimes overlooked but, taking into account that safety footwear only came into the NRCS portfolio a few years ago, ...more

Q&A with Michael Wyatt, MD Bata SAHow happy or otherwise is your business with the NRCS? Do you have numbers for all your styles? What are the problems, for safety footwear suppliers, with what the NRCS is doing? Bata has a good relationship with NRCS. However, South Africa would benefit from speeding up the turnaround time of ne ...more

Q&A with Nick Bryant, national sales manager, ProFit Safety FootwearYou have said that ProFit Safety Footwear has secured 18% growth year on year through Covid-19. How do you get shipping berths? This is the crystal ball part of the game. The “Magic 8 Ball” gets a shake as we ask the question…will the vessel be ...more

The Woodlands, Texas, U.S.A. – ‘Functional Footwear’ specialist Joe Nimble has developed a 'recovery sandal' for runners – with assistance from Footwear Innovation Lab GmbH and  global chemical company Huntsman Corporation. The so-called 'recoverToes'  sandals, which are designed to rehabilitate tired fee ...more

Consumers are increasingly turning towards online retailers to buy apparel. In China, e-commerce now accounts for over one quarter of all non-food retailing. How can brands succeed in this competitive market? It would be wrong to think the 2020 pandemic caused consumers to shift their shopping habits away from ‘bricks and mortar&rsq ...more

Mirriam Moswaane, head of communications and marketing at the NRCS, responded to our questionsHow does the NRCS view its relationship with the safety footwear industry in terms of compliance and co-operation? The relationship is good. How does the NRCS react to criticisms such as:Why do approvals take a long time? This is due to the ...more

We asked a number of South African sports goods retailers to comment on the NPD report. Two responded. Mike Augoustides, partner, Mike's SportsCape Town, W. Cape, SA - Generally there has been a more positive sentiment since the beginning of May. Team sports have started to begin again albeit in a staggered manner. Some clubs are tra ...more

 On 5 May 2021 the Regulations Regarding Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR Regs) came into force under the Waste Act.  On the same day, the second round of amendments to the EPR Regs were finally published after extensive consultation with the affected sectors. The significance of the EPR Regs cannot be understated.  Th ...more

For Millennials and Gen Xers, some of the most popular videos on TikTok (aside from the ones telling us our jeans are out of style) are ones that allow us to relive the nostalgia of our youth. I was recently brought back to my pre-teen adolescence when a particular video showcased a book in The Baby-Sitters Club series, “Dawn Saves ...more

Milan, Italy (May 13, 2021) - The Italian government’s recent announcement of a date for starting physical trade fair events again "makes us cautiously optimistic about the future,” says Assocalzaturifici and MICAM Chair Siro Badon. “We’re working on a new 3-day formula rather than the usual 4 days, guarantee ...more

April 23, 2021 - The strong trend we saw in golf and team sports equipment under COVID has continued into 2021, with a few notable exceptions. Sales growth for Q1 was robust, up more than 50% compared to 2020 and up more than 40% compared to 2019. There, of course, were several one-offs that drove these trends: the third stimulus check, t ...more

BBC, April 09, 2021 - Nike says the art collective which made "Satan Shoes" that purportedly contain a drop of human blood in the soles has agreed to issue a voluntary recall as part of a legal settlement. The $1,018 (£740) trainers are modified Nike Air Max 97s. Only 666 pairs were made and all but one have been shipped. ...more

(April 1, 2021) - The Postal Service, which receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations, protects its intellectual property. Officially licensed products sold in the marketplace expand the affinity for the Postal Service brand and provide incremental revenu ...more

The reasoning behind MSCHF's launch was that some branded sneakers have become popular as collectibles. Another BBC story, on April 16, was headlined "Kanye West's $1m Yeezy shoes are 'most valuable to go on auction'." Extracts from that article included these gems: In recent years, sneakers have gained the same collectable stat ...more

Prato, Italy - Texon, bust known to the footwear industry as a cellulose insole board manufacturer, has launched "a unique, patented, jacquard weaving technology", branded ProWeave, which will allow customers to custom design fabric which is then made by Texon. Texon says it has applications for the footwear, apparel, fashion an ...more

Blantyre, Malawi - Mussa Hajat, founder of Footwear Centre, is pictured above receiving an Omega watch from Bata Rhodesia MD, Dr Fiksel, at Bata's head office in Gwelo, in 1957. He started work with Bata in 1950 as a salesman in Bata's Blantyre shop, and rose to become sales manager of all Bata's retail shops in Nyasaland. He finally left ...more

Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA - Marco Di Lembo, the owner of Villani Shoes, died tragically on April 06, aged 47. Born in Johannesburg to Michele and Rosella Di Lembo, he went to Robertsham Primary Junior School before progressing to Sir John Adamson High School. While in high school, Marco matured and earned academic distinctions and partici ...more

Durban, KZN, SA - Shoe machinery expert Brian Wallis died unexpectedly on April 09, aged 75. Born and raised in Port Elizabeth, he entered the footwear industry in his early 20s when he joined British United, at that time by far the dominant force in footwear machinery in SA, where he trained as a machinery technician. There he also met h ...more

Extract from Shop-Eat-Surf, April 15, 2021- The federal government’s monthly retail numbers released Thursday morning backup what we have been hearing anecdotally from industry retailers and brands: consumers opened their wallets in a big way in March.U.S. retail sales grew 9.8% in March compared to the previous month. And most inte ...more