Adidas football boots among boycott list in UK

Source: http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/Boycotts/currentUKboycotts.aspx

www.ethicalconsumer.org, a not-for-profit research co-operative alternative consumer organisation has placed adidas among boycott list for using kangaroo skin to make some types of football boots.

Ethical Consumer’s boycott list is widely regarded as the most comprehensive English-language list of progressive boycotts. We report on all the boycotts which have a registered headquarters. Inclusion in the list does not constitute an endorsement.

The boycotts list was last fully updated in May 2008. For the most up-to-date information on any boycott please get in touch with the listed contact.

Read further http://www.savethekangaroo.com/adidas/index.shtml

Shoes designed and handmade to fit the feet that wear them

Source:

July 2008 • Vol. 14 • Number 10

Word of foot puts Benzie company on the map – Read complete Story

By Danielle Horvath

Owner Tim McKay outside his shop at the top of the hill in Benzonia where he makes custom, handmade shoes. Photo by Danielle Horvath

BENZONIA – In this technology-crazed world we live in, Fernand Footwear makes shoes that are designed and handmade to fit the feet that wear them.

In his small, but airy Benzonia shop just off the main drag, owner Tim McKay traces his customers’ feet and creates a one of a kind pair just for them. He hand cuts the insole to the foot shape, hand stretches and works the leather over a piece of iron, and using just a sewing machine and small grinder, assembles each pair by hand. The entire shoe is then dunked in water and pushed out by hand to the final shape, all for less than $200 a pair.

With a “Made in America” Vibram sole, vegetable-tanned full grain leather insoles and water-resistant oil-tanned top-grade cowhide uppers, the shoes are lightweight, flexible and laminated to fit the curves of your sole. The oil-tan uppers are supple, durable and breathe through the grain.

McKay can build around any shoe inserts or orthotics and is often told by his customers that they have been unable to find a pair of shoes commercially produced that fit and feel good. They also service what they make with resoling and reconditioning.

“There are people walking around with Fernand’s made in the late 1980s that have been reconditioned,” said McKay.

In a good week, McKay and his part-time assistant can make about 15 pairs. He has a four-month backlog of custom orders and admits, “I’m always looking for interested and able assistants. It is very physical work and requires craftsmanship, strength and attention to detail, but it beats swinging a hammer.”

McKay is a former construction worker who worked and learned from the original owner Steve Fernand, and then bought the business in 2006.

“The learning curve on just what it takes to run a business has been huge,” he said. “But it was a logical progression once I learned from Steve, and he was interested in selling and moving on to other things.”

“The Fernand brand name is well-established and we get customers by word of “foot” as Steve used to say,” said McKay.

Fernand started the Comfoot Shoe line in 1978 and the business has been in Benzonia since 1987. There is a large file of “shoe love letters” from satisfied customers raving about their shoes and often wanting another pair and catalogs to pass onto their family and friends.

Although the 60-hour workweeks have been a surprise to McKay, he sees the business as an important link to his personal beliefs of sustainability and concerns about the environment.

“It’s been a pleasant surprise that people are more conscious of where and how the products they buy are being made. I’m really glad to see that. The product sells itself. I could probably move the business anywhere and customers would find me.”

McKay chose Benzonia for its small town qualities. “I ride my unicycle a few blocks to work all year around, it’s a good place to raise my 15-year-old daughter, I play music in a local band when I can and, for now, that all fits. I’m hoping in a few years to run the shop with alternative energy and go off the electrical grid, and that’s entirely possible here.”

For those wanting to forgo the custom shoe wait time, there are several styles available in the “shoe room” including loafer and oxford styles and sandals. McKay is also expanding a line of handmade leather purses and pouches. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Saturday year-round, he will also take appointments if customers call first.

Check out www.fernandfootwear.com, or call 800-419-8621.BN

Man sues Waukesha County, jail over amputated toe

SOURCE

By MIKE JOHNSON
mikejohnson@journalsentinel.com

COMPLETE STORY

Posted: July 3, 2008

Waukesha – A New Berlin man is suing Waukesha County and its work-release jail, contending that his left big toe had to be amputated because jail staff would not let him wear orthopedic shoes prescribed because of his diabetic condition.

Warren J. Krohn, who is in the Huber work-release facility in connection with the theft of natural gas, says in the suit he was required to wear the jail’s standard-issue footwear. As a result, in August he began experiencing leg pain and ultimately developed blisters on his foot, the suit says.

The suit, filed Thursday in Waukesha County Circuit Court, says Krohn immediately told Huber authorities about the problem but staff denied him permission to wear the medically prescribed shoes.

He is seeking unspecified damages from the county, including for his “past, present and future pain and suffering,” the suit says.

Krohn’s toe was amputated Sept. 10, the suit says, and he needs ongoing medical care, including additional surgeries.

Read complete story in the link

Guiness World Record created with the longest chain of shoes: 10,512 – A high-stepping record

Source:

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Guiness World Record created with the longest chain of shoes: 10,512 to be precis

The National Geographic campus on M Street Northwest was the site of a Guiness World Record on Wednesday with the longest chain of shoes: 10,512 to be precise. The sea of footwear, laid toe to heel on the institution’s circular driveway, was sent in by readers of National Geographic Kids magazine over the course of six months and certified as a bona fide record by Guinness World Records representative Stuart Claxton.

After their record is certified, organizers plan to send the shoes to Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program to be made into material for sports field surfaces.

In addition to a certificate, Mr. Claxton delivered a hearty handshake to third-grader Peter Wajda, 8, of Mount Laurel, N.J., for his efforts in collecting more than 500 shoes from his school, Moorestown Friends School. The shoes will be forwarded to Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program to be made into material for sports field surfaces.

Eight-year-old Peter Wajda, who helped collect hundreds of shoes from the Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, lies on some …

Some of the shoes, such as this pair from Florida, came with messages about where they’ve been.

The circular driveway for the National Geographic campus on M Street Northwest is the staging ground Wednesday for the Guinness …

After their record is certified, organizers plan to send the shoes to Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program to be made into material …

Stepping into the shoes of a designer

Source:

3 July 2008

The article presents the future of consumer product-making, combining social networking, open-source design and viral marketing. According to report some academics think consumer-driven design will displace corporate research-and-development centers at many corporations because it ultimately outsources both design and marketing in a way that cultivates and retains customers.

“PORTLAND — In a startup’s office overlooking downtown Portland, three creative business owners — a sneaker-shop owner, an event marketer and a watch designer — gather to judge a wall full of shoe designs.

The sketches — 50 of them — had been submitted online by would-be artists on the promise that Ryz would make and sell dozens of pairs of the most attractive shoe.”

read more | digg story | Interesting Article for all Product Managers

Vietnam’s footwear industry likely faces added woes

(Original Source: SGT) – Posted 4 July 08

03 July 2008

The Association of Footwear Producers of Italy as an EC member will likely ask the commission to extend the anti-dumping tariff deadline.

VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam’s footwear industry, yet to relieve from the European Commission (EC) decision to strip it off the preferential tariffs, will likely face the added woes of extended anti-dumping tariff imposed on shoes with leather upper parts, an industry source said. Read further Story

The Association of Footwear Producers of Italy as an EC member will likely ask the commission to extend the anti-dumping tariff deadline, according to the Vietnam Leather and Footwear Association, or Lefaso.

Lefaso chairman Nguyen Duc Thuan said that the anti-dumping tariff had been applied since 2006, and would be automatically removed on October 7 in case the EC receives no appeal from any of its 27 members by July 7 this year. He said that the Italian was preparing a formal appeal.

If the appeal is submitted, it is possible that the EC will reinvestigate Vietnam’s leather footwear products for 15 more months. And if this unwanted case occurs, it means that the country’s leather and footwear industry will continue facing the anti-dumping tariff for at least 15, more months, Thuan told the Daily.

On June 13, the country’s leather and footwear enterprises received unwanted news when the EC decided to remove Vietnamese-made footwear from its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) which will probably be implemented since early next year.

The removal of GSP for Vietnam is said to cause difficulty and negative impacts on domestic leather and footwear enterprises as their products win have to compete harsher with items from other exporting countries.

However, Thuan expressed his optimism, saying that the anti-dumping tariff might not be extended and recommended enterprises to keep calm. He added that Lefaso and officials of the Ministry of Industry and Trade have been in talks with EC officials to have the anti-dumping tariff removed as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, local makers are also seeking the Government’s approval for slashing import tariffs on shoe materials and accessories to as to bolster local enterprises’ competitiveness.

Diep Thanh Kiet, vice chairman of HCMC Shoes and Leather Association, told the Daily that the association last week had sent a petition to the Ministry of Industry and Trade to ask for a reduction of the import tariff on finished leather materials to 5% from 10%.

If the petition to halve the tariff is approved, it will help the city’s leather and shoes enterprises to overcome the hardship, especially when the GSP is removed early next year and in case the anti-dumping tariff is extended, according to Kiet.

“The reduction of import tariff on leather materials will make the country’s footwear and leather industry more competitive with the rivals in the region as well as in the world in the future,” Kiet said.

At the moment, Vietnam’s footwear industry is heavily reliant on outside materials, as some 75% of its demand for material is imported from other countries.

Last year, the industry obtained total export revenue of some US$3.9 billion, with the European market along contributing some 54%.

The country expected to reach total export turnover of US$4.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 17% compared to last year, and also expected to attain an export turnover of some US$6.2 billion by 2010.