About S&V Publications
S&V has been a window onto the soul of the leather, footwear and leather goods industries in southern and eastern Africa for 87 years, and like them, has reinvented itself many times
S&V has had 3 eras:
- From 1935 to around 1970 as a subsidiary of the Port Elizabeth [Footwear] Managers' and Foremen's Association.
- From around 1970 to 1984 as part of Thomson Publications SA (Pty) Ltd.
- From 1985 to the present as a sole proprietorship.
S&V Publications is a stable of online trade media covering leather, footwear, leather goods and PPE in southern and eastern Africa - mainly countries where English is the principal language of business.
As of 2022, S&V is 88 years old - far older than most of the businesses and institutions in the industries it covers, and among the oldest trade publications in Africa.
Shoes & Views, the magazine from which S&V Publications grew, was founded in 1935 as a quarterly A5 publication by the Port Elizabeth Managers' and Foremen's Association. Port Elizabeth, in what is now the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, was where the South African leather and footwear industries first took root, mainly built by immigrants from England.
Its founding editors were 2 shoemakers, A.E. Anderson and A.C. Kirby. 10 years later, Anderson was also the founder president of the Footwear Manufacturers' Federation - what today is the Southern African Footwear & Leather Industries Association (SAFLIA). He also remained editor for probably close to 40 years.
And in an example of symmetry, SAFLIA became a sponsor of S&V in 2016.
Somewhere around 1970, Shoes & Views was sold to Thomson Publications South Africa, a subsidiary of what is now Thomson Reuters Corporation.
It became a monthly A4 magazine and its content became less technical, reflecting a wider readership including wholesalers, retailers and importers. It also moved around to different TPSA offices, and its staff changed frequently, including 8 editors in 14 years.
In 1985, after a shakeup at TPSA, Shoes & Views was sold to its last editor, Tony Dickson, who remains owner and editor.
The decision in the 1990s to change the name from Shoes & Views to S&V was taken so that it didn't exclude leather - which by that time was predominantly automotive - and leather goods, while retaining the essence of its original name.
The monthly magazine S&V Footwear & Leather Goods is the direct successor to Shoes & Views. The other publications in the stable are:
- The S&V Directory was founded in 1983. For many people, the Directory is our raison d'être, and it was to protect the future of the Directory that SAFLIA offered to become a sponsor.
- S&V African Leather was founded as a separate monthly magazine in 2007, and turns 15 in 2021. It covers the leather industry from farming to finished leather.
- S&V Protect was also founded in 2007 as a quarterly magazine. Having initially grown out of an annual feature on industrial footwear in S&V Footwear & Leather Goods, it now has an entirely separate readership of PPE end users, and covers all aspects of PPE.
- S&V Weekly Newsletter was founded in 2015 to allow us to respond to news more quickly. Where the monthly magazines concentrate on features and opinion, the newsletter covers breaking news with brief coverage which can be explained in more detail in the magazines.
S&V switched its magazines - S&V Footwear & Leather Goods, S&V African Leather and S&V Protect - to digital in 2015 in the wake of a devastating postal strike which dragged on for months. The Newsletter started life in the same year as an electronic publication from the outset. The Directory, however, remained a print publication (with a subscribed online option) until 2019. In 2020, the Covid-19 Pandemic obliged us to take the step we should have taken previously: To switch the Directory, too, to digital.
The management team is made up of:
Proprietor, editor and sales manager: Tony Dickson. Tel: +27 (0)83 757 4627. Email: tony@svmag.co.za.
Digital manager and webmaster: Jonathan Commons.
Design manager: Linda Davie.
