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STATE OF THE GLOBAL FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY
and 2010, leading to a decision in May 2010 that a
relaunch of negotiations “should be possible”.
Vito Artioli has also called for the duties on exports of
hides to be lifted to make it easier for footwear
manufacturers to source and use leather. This is a
subject particularly close to his heart because, as well as
running his own high-end leather footwear brand, he
only ended a long tenure as the president of the Italian
National Footwear Association (ANCI) in June last year.
Leather shoes accounted for almost 83% of the export
value of footwear shipments from Italy in the first five
months of 2011, but only 58% of the volume as exports
and the value of non-leather shoes also increased. Over
the January-May period, Italy exported nearly 25.8
million pairs of shoes with synthetic uppers, 21.2% more
than in the same period in 2010. The organisation’s
director general, Fabio Aromatici, says ‘Made in Italy’
will always be associated with leather more than any
other material, but he points out that a decrease in
consumption of red meat in many parts of the world
and the increase in the use of leather in the domestic
market in China is putting strong pressure on leather
supply worldwide. Vito Artioli agrees and adds: “The
prices of leather and hides are being affected by this,
but also by export duties. In Italy, we mainly use leather
so we feel we need more vertical integration, more free
trade and better communication.”
However, as Mwinyikione Mwinyihija, president of the
Leather Development Council of Kenya, has pointed
out, with per capita consumption of shoes on the
increase in many parts of the developing world and
projections of a global population of 10 billion people
within 20 years, demand for footwear made from any
material will be high. “There could be demand for 25
billion pairs a year,” Mr Mwinyihija says, “synthetic or
leather. Whether we [in the leather industry] like it or
not, the leather sector is prestigious; that is leather’s
place.”
What leather’s place will be in the footwear market of
the future has still to be decided. Industry observers
calculate that around half of the leather produced
globally in 2011 (Mr Mwinyihija’s figure for the total is
25 billion square-feet) has gone into footwear, and 12.5
billion square-feet of finished leather is worth a lot of
money to tanners. Not too long ago, though, 75% of
the leather the world’s tanners could produce was
snapped up by shoe manufacturers, so change is
occurring. Some tanners blame raw materials suppliers
for forcing this change on the world by driving the price
of hides and, consequently, finished leather too high. At
the same time, they accuse footwear brands of failing
to make the case for leather, while footwear brands say
they are simply responding to consumer demand for
fresh, bright footwear that functions well and doesn’t
cost too much. Consumers decide if shoes, made from
leather or any other material, represent good value for
money or not, and this brings us back to Peter
Mangione’s original point. Suppliers that fail to
understand what consumers are looking for and are
willing to pay for are likely to end up with unsuccessful
products and very tight margins at best.
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