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As a Footwear Consultant to the global footwear industry I am lucky enough to see and be involved in a very wide range of totally different footwear related subjects. From writing reports on nails in childrens' footwear for Tading Standards, holding training seminars on basic shoemaking, shoe fitting, inspection processess etc. writing footwear specifications for major retailers, analysing returns data and creating systems for returns measurement, auditing retailers, suppliers and their factories for basic quality assurance criteria, reviewing ranges for potential safety, quality and risk assessment criteria………….and much more.
The variety of processess, procedures, systems, standards, techniques and the like is quite frightening, and all for the purpose of getting shoes onto feet. But there has been and continues to be a fundemental shift in this quality arena..
Of course the basic quality criteria of fitting shoes, testing shoes, labelling shoes accurately, ensuring durability, fitness for purpose and selling merchantable quality continues at a pace. And working with Sealing Sample systems, conducting factory audits, analysisng returns, writing specifications, reviewing ranges for potential problems and much more are all fundemental stages in the quality supply chain.
But the quality emphasis is changing. Quality now takes in such diverse elements as Social Accountability / Ethical Trading, Banned and Restricted Substances, Eu Pictogram Labelling, General Products Safety Directive, Trades Description and Consumer Protection, Warm Lined labelling, Counterfeiting, License Infringement….and more. Who would have predicted 20 years ago that by law you have to sell a safe shoe, labelled in a certain way that won't be made by children abroad? All of the above are now or are becoming engrained into the very fibre of our industry and will soon be taken for granted if indeed they are not already. But the beast continues to move. Just when we thought it was safe to sell our shoes, new challenges appear on the horizon which, one day, may become legal requirements for our product. Compulsory recycling, Minimum Carbon Footprinting, Sustainable Leather, Organic Cotton, Fair Trade, Carbon Tax……..who can predict? One thing is for sure. There is never a dull moment in our industry and just when you thought it was safe to start selling your new delvery of footwear to an unsuspecting public, something creeps out of the woodwork to make sure that our lives get more and complicated and regulated. Do you think the cobbler in Medieval England cared if his leather contained a banned chemical?! Or if his 8 year old son helped in the workshop! Or if his shoe lace was 1 inch too long and may create a tripping hazard!
Jack Brown is an independent consultant to the global footwear industry and can be contacted on jbfootwear@aol.com
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