What a girl wants
October 1st 2008 Over the past 5 years, the safety workwear market has seen a step change in the way its products have been designed. Stuart Thorne of safety footwear specialist Jal Group, tells Health and Safety Matters the steps that manufacturers are starting to take to redress the imbalance.
Where the safety footwear industry has been concerned, there has been a general and simplistic approach to the supply of footwear for women – design safety footwear for men and then recreate it in smaller sizes.
While high street shoe and boot styling for men is far more easily adapted and integrated into safety footwear, manufacturers have faced a much bigger challenge on the design front when it has come to creating 'women's footwear', which is why no-one has yet, or will ever be likely to, launch the safety high heel.
Safety, practicality and comfort must always be top of the list of priorities when it comes to safety footwear with style remaining a relatively new, but increasingly important factor.
But while high street inspired shoe styles for women will always be a greater challenge for safety footwear manufacturers, the design of safety footwear for women is an issue that is now being addressed.
But what is wrong with the largely accepted norm of having safety footwear that is made in smaller sizes for women? In reality, while the feet of men and women may look the same - there are distinct, physiological differences, that manufacturers are now addressing in the way they manufacture safety footwear for women.
Research has revealed fundamental differences in the make up of men's and women's feet which have revealed: Significant differences in the shape of the foot arch Differences in the size of the lateral side of the foot A difference in the size of the great toe and ball of the foot Women, for example, tend to have a wider forefoot, shorter foot arch length, and shorter metatarsals compared to men.
So for safety footwear manufacturers these physiological differences are now being addressed and incorporated into 'made for women' safety footwear.
It was these major influences that were at the centre of a study programme that led to the development of a completely new range of women's safety from Aimont.
When we were looking at developing a completely new range of women's footwear, we firstly had to undertake a study programme by our R&D team that took some of the historical anatomical research and combined that with our own in house research into the anatomy of women's feet. This research was essential if we were to fully understand and then create a range of designs and sole units specifically designed for women.
So when manufacturing, the footwear design needs to reflect the shape and make up of the female foot if a true, comfortable and secure fit is to be achieved.
A narrower fit, with shorter arch and altered pressure zones within the sole unit may sound like small and inconsequential differences, but the additional comfort and foot stability that a designed for gender pair of safety footwear will provide over a working year cannot be underestimated.
The design process must also incorporate the way in which women within the manufacturing sector, as an example, tend to largely work during their shift cycle, with many stood, often at the same workstation, for long periods, leaving the feet open to high levels of fatigue, requiring an additional emphasis on the comfort supplied by the foot bed, in addition to the ventilation of the footwear.
And while styling is becoming ever more important within the safety footwear market generally, creating a range of women's protective footwear, cannot move too far away from the fundamentals of mainstream safety footwear design which must have function over form in the first instance. Instead it is more about creating softer, rounder lines throughout the styling process.
Conclusion
Historically, the majority of women in the workplace who require safety footwear have had to make do with made for men safety footwear that has been recreated in smaller sizes.
However, the move to make women's safety footwear more mainstream is definitely afoot with manufacturers in the PPE sector. More articles from JAL Group: | 
