Footwear Industry Articles
- Première Vision: Desolina Suter appointed fashion directorParis, France - This month, Desolina Suter has joined the Première Vision team as fashion director. Of dual French/Italian origin, she is an expert in materials, colours and trends, and has been Première Vision’s fashion correspondent in Italy for nearly 15 years. She will be in charge of coordinating the Premi&e ...moreObituary: Nigel Plumpton: The best times in life were around the campfireObituary: Nigel Plumpton - CNB Industries (29/04/1949-29/10/2021) ...moreIT solutions for stable supply chainsThe Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, headquartered in Germany, describes itself as the world’s leading applied research organization, and we frequently carry its reports in S&V Footwear & Leather Goods' sister publication, S&V Protect. This report, however, is pertinent for all our publications. ...moreItaly: Recovery led by brand exportsFootwear industry: double-digit recovery in 2021 (turnover +16.2% over 12 months, according to the earliest projections) despite a -10 to -15% gap compared to 2019. Recovery is uneven: the big names are making great progress, while 2 out of 3 companies close the year with revenues below pre-Covid levels. Uncertainty is caused by a fresh o ...moreObituary: Chris Bezuidenhout - The cross trainer mourns the loss of GMObituary: Chris Bezuidenhout - The Cross Trainer (11/12/1951-16/12/2021) Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA - Frame Leisure Trading, T/A The Cross Trainer, is saddened to announce the passing of its beloved General Manager, Chris Bezuidenhout. “Chris spearheaded many businesses, with the inclusion of taking our company and facili ...moreObituary: Ron MacNiven - Bata, Edworks, Decofurn (24/09/1944-09/01/2022) - A corporate man with a rebellious sense of humourDurban, KZN, SA - Ron arrived in the then Rhodesia from Scotland as a schoolboy. He kept his Scottish accent throughout his life, which I teased him about. I met him in the late 1960s when he was one of Bata's retail shop managers in the then Salisbury. Through various promotions, he became retail personnel m ...moreEffects of the pandemic: Local production up, imports down, pressure on pricesMore than any other footwear category in South Africa, safety footwear has so far survived the pandemic relatively unscathed - no life support from government, and apparently no casualties. It helped that its status as part of PPE, and therefore an essential service, allowed it to operate, albeit on a reduced scale, during the strictest p ...moreRebel Safety Gear - Q&A with Gavin Cooke, MD- The NRCS needs to do what it's supposed to dorn- Sourcing from China hasn't been a problemrn- Swing to lower priced boots, but demand is good ...morePPE budgets stretched, but sales upQ&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 ...moreThey have an enormous task, but the process needs to be speeded upEugene 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© S&V Publications