Australian shoe company on a mission
April 29, 2012 | Karen Daniel I came across an interesting article today about Gideon Shoes, a company born from a youth center in the immigrant working-class Liverpool suburb of Sydney called Street University. All manufacturing is done in Australia (though they are struggling with costs so this may be changing) and all of the as-yet meager profits are pumped back into Street University. The shoes are designed and marketed by the center youth.
The shoes are super cool. The mission is ideal. But the company is struggling.
According to the article, originally the owners set out to find a factory in China for production, but were unable to find any with acceptable working conditions. So they decided to produce domestically. The result in human terms: The workers are paid a fair wage and work in an environment that safeguards their health. The result in harsh economic terms: the owner estimates the shoes cost 20 times as much to produce.
I'm impressed with the creativity and tenacity of Gideon Shoes. Their struggle puts the complexities between the desire to trade fairly and the need to make a profit into sharp focus.
