Tredair

Tredair is a brand of British-made footwear produced by White & Co., a shoe design and procurement business in Northamptonshire. The family ran factories from 1890 to 2003 making classic men's footwear and variations, sports footwear, cricketing shoes, utility footwear to government specification during the 1940s, a military contract for the Australian Army, and safety footwear employing significant numbers of people at White's Shoe Works in New Street Daventry, and in the village of Earl's Barton in their first Victorian factory called "Progress Works" and then a 1960s ex-Barker's factory off Station Road.

"The firm produced that most English of things, the welted shoe: a perversely difficult beast, involving the glueing, nailing and stitching together of innumerable components to produce the sort of indestructible footwear beloved of ex-public schoolboys and members of Her Majesty's Constabulary."

Until 1983, when the Dr Martens' largest producer bought the brand from the Funk Maetens Patent and Tradmark Association, White & Co shared the work of producing Dr. Martens-branded boots with companies including George Cox, NPS, GB Britton and Sons, Hawkins of Northampton, Earl's Barton neighbours WJ Brookes, R Griggs Group and Blundstone of Australia. 70% of White's 10,0000 pair annual production was air-cushioned footwear in the early 90s, according to an interview with Management Today. White's best seller was a 4 eyelet gibson shoe, along with short production-runs of fashion styles and the classic 8 eyelet ankle boot, made on a rolling army last. To maintain independence White's registered the Tredair trade mark in 1976 to produce boots labelled "Dr Martens Tredair", and then just "Tredair" after 1983, using their own patented foam-injection system to make a bouncier mid-sole than the DM felt. They filed patent 2292878B with Harry Gee as inventor. In 1990 White & Company (Earls Barton) Ltd. was awarded a Queens Award for Export Achievement after exporting 70% of production including Gripfast shoes, made by the same company and mainstream goodyear-welted styles, and employing 380 people.

White's had an unusual experience of globalisation, along with other similar factories, with some unexpected success led by demand for DM and similar brands and their ability to produce short production runs of a few pairs of boots such as 50-pair orders for an online Vegan shoe company. The boom was short-lived.

In 1999 the Daventry factory closed with the loss of 100 jobs. In 2003 the company adopted a felt and foam combination for their mid soles, and closed the Earl's Barton factory and company shell to move production to Northamptonshire Productive Society, then a staff co-operative, which continues to make shoes in the UK town of Woolaston. About the same time, DM trademark-holders Griggs tried moving all production to China after a period when uppers had been sent from Thailand for the rest of production to be done in the UK, leaving NPS as the only UK manufacturer of this kind of footwear. Unfortunately, distribution via shops without advertising was difficult, with customers tending to assume that the DM brand always been a single company, rather than showing interest in UK or Australian successor brands. High production costs ruled-out a sales force or advertising campaign.

Current owners of the DM brand -R Griggs- have re-introduced a "made in England" range made at their company base, a few hundred yards away from the Northamptonshire Productive Society factory where DM production began. Their company was sold to venture capitalists Permera for £300m and it may be that new owners will keep some production in the UK. Meanwhile the Productive Society, which managed its own staff pension fund, ran short of customers and voted to sell-out to the second-highest bidder out of two, because the bidder hoped to maintain UK production rather than simply to take-over the brands. The vote was cast over the course of two meetings, carried by the votes of pensioner members. The society then wound itself up and is commemorated by a blue plaque on the NPS building.

NPS' web site state that they make shoes for a number of other companies and their own NPS and Solovair brands; the fiddly nature of making small batches tends to slow production to a month or two after a clear order - still quicker than production in China when surface delivery is added. As the UK economy rebalances, Tredair and Solovair boots can now compete on minimum quantity with footwear produced in China, while competing on price and minimum order with welted footwear produced in Europe.

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