S&V Footwear & Leather Goods Magazine Vol81 No3 March 2018
This Magazine is sponsored by SAFLIA
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IN THIS ISSUE:
Business Barometer: We have to try harder
- Haesloop Agencies: Still macro challenges, but strong at company level.
- Leather Basics: Price is still the major issue.
- Bella Bianca: Signs of an upturn.
- The Azula Collective: Energy, experience and optimism.
- Bass Marketing: Green shoots despite the gloom.
Second hand apparel
- Is the banning of importation of second-hand clothes and shoes a panacea to industrialisation in East Africa?.
In the news
- Police shoe scam in Kenya.
- Zimbabwe's Millennium Footwear records uptick in local demand.
Technology
- Shoepack: Making the most of your lasts.
Footwear and the environment
- Can footwear ever give waste the boot?
- 'World's most comfortable shoe' now made from SA invasive trees.
- Is algae the next big performance story in footwear?
Trade fairs and academic conferences
- UITIC: First speakers announced - Making shoes without stitching and lasting and The development of emerging business models.
- Malawi fair invitation.
- Hub facilitates East African sourcing for US companies.
Notice Board
- Obituary for Roger Benjamin.
International
- With store traffic down, H&M throws resources behind digital.
- How President Trump's trade wars with China and Europe could impact footwear firms.
- Crocs shoes design loses EU patent.
- Is China's manufacturing dominance dipping?
Advertisers in this Issue
Chillisource/Shoepack (7), Katz Footwear (5), PMC Group (4), Source Africa (OFC), 20th UITIC International Technical Footwear Congress (2).
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Footwear Industry Articles
- How FootJoy’s superbly crafted shoes influenced my life
An Informative & Nostalgic Letter written in April 2025 to two executives at Acushnet (USA) – A leading golf corporation which includes FootJoy Shoes.RE: FootJoy & II recall the very first pair of FootJoy golf shoes my late father bought for me in July 1976. This wasn’t my first interaction with the brand that I had al ...moreNike claims ‘mental benefits’ from new styles, observers take wait-and-see approach
Nike makes big technical claims for a category of non-sport footwear (their description: pre-game and post-game) launched in January.Certainly not the first footwear to incorporate underfoot pressure points, ‘Nike Mind Technology’ is 2 shoes – a mule and a sneaker (in different colour options) – which Nike says lit ...moreManufacturer-buyer event: Results still to be tallied, but broad enthusiasm for more
The 2-day Retail Buyer Engagement & Manufacturer Onboarding Programme on 01 and 02 July was part of an effort to kickstart the R-CTFL Masterplan – which, from a footwear perspective at least, has appeared stalled.It was sponsored by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and implemented through the R-CTFL Masterplan Footwea ...more
Leather Industry Articles
- Sam Setter's 'Pills': Over and AgainThe EU announced that hides and skins could be removed from the EUDR directive's deforestation commodities. Could! Last month, like many others, I thought that the decision had been taken, but that doesn’t seem to be correct. The final decision will be taken after public feedback. Yeah, you read this right: after public feedback. As ...moreSARLEN – the journey so far
SARLEN was guided by a model policy framework for the leather value chain, adopted by all member states in 2023. It was supported by Deutsche Zusammenarbeit (German Cooperation), implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), with the SADC Secretariat as the principal sponsor.The building blocks are ass ...moreDavid Buirski retires (but we’re sure to hear more from him)
David Buirski, the former South African who edited World Leather from 1993 to 2005, and who continued his involvement with the publication and its offshoots until recently, has finally retired because “having turned 90 last December, I guess it was the sensible thing to do. Thirty-three years could be considered a long time.&rd ...more
PPE Industry Articles
- 2nd SA PPE conference being planned for 2027 under the heading ‘Smart protection: the next era of PPE’Johannesburg, Gauteng, SA – Technology, artificial intelligence, connected devices and data are transforming the way we think about personal protection equipment — from how PPE is procured and selected, to how it is used, monitored and managed in the workplace.After the successful launch of the South African PPE conference hel ...moreProtecting the workforce: The critical role of PPE
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is utilised in a work-environment as part of a larger prevention plan, because on its own protection is limited and may even provide a false sense of protection.An occupational disease prevention plan must be an actionable approach that identifies workplace health hazards, evaluates exposure, and i ...moreRealPPE Marketplace: Where safety meets smarter procurementRealPPE Marketplace is a 100% black women-owned B2B PPE marketplace built for South African industry. Founded after years of witnessing safety officers and procurement teams lose time to fragmented suppliers, inconsistent pricing, and missing documentation, RealPPE was created to bring structure and reliability to industrial PPE sourcing. ...more
