Footwear Trends For Coming Royal Visit

Chronicle (Levin), 4 September 1948, Page 4

Footwear Trends For Coming Royal Visit

Generally speaking, the Royal visit to New Zealand is not expected to affect the shoe trade in Levin a great deal. In common with other lines of apparel, shoes of an exotic nature will be in demand. One Levin footwear retailer said yesterday that the trade was expecting some imported shoes, Which' will probably be fairly expensive. The'se of course would be for women, he saidpadding that as long as -men's feet were covered they did not seem to care. :New Zealand tanners are^ busy producing leathers in gold and silver colours and high grade suede in a wide range of colours, formerly imported, in anticipation of a neavy demand from footwear manufacturers for making evening and other types of shoes for the Royal visit. Bcarcity of evening shoes inHhe Dominion today is partly due to over 1000 pairs being "damaged in an outbreaK of fire in an Auckland factory recently. .. Lack of raw material, which normally would be orought from the United States, nas been a main obstacle to expansion in output of these shoes, as dollar licences are unobtainaDle. Hence the footwear • industry has had to turn to local tanners for supplies of special leathers. Tanners are making a special effort to dil the gap. ' ' More chronre leather is needed and tanners are working at capacity to meet the demand for this and other .types of leather for the footwear industry. Slipper Shortages Troubles encountered by retailers in securing slippers were due part- : ly to not replacing orders with ! manufacturers at the right time, ! said Mr. J. R. Done, secretary of the Auckland Manufacturers' As;sociation, recently. If slippers for winter delivery were ordered in j the summer no .difliculty in securing the types and quantities needI ed would be experienced. i In infants' shoes up to size 4 jfirms were exceeding their output - quotas, but there appeared to be sitll a shortage in overall supplies 'in the Dominion. This would be overcome soon. Production of larger infants' shoes was now almost abreast of demand, and some factories were looking for orders