Investigation and evaluation of the quality features related to comfort of casual shoes in Bangladeshi leading retail brands using physical and chemical standard test methods

Several materials and chemicals are being used during manufacturing processes of shoes which are responsible for a good quality product. Nowadays it has been coming out of the current market of Bangladesh that leading retail brands are not providing good quality footwear to their customers. The aim of the study was to investigate different physical and chemical properties of sample shoe materials related to comfort features. Ten pairs of casual leather shoes were brought from five leading Bangladeshi retail brand outlets focusing on equal price point and best-selling article. These samples underwent different physical and chemical tests following standard methods of SATRA (Shoe and Allied Trade Research Association), IUP (International Union for Physical testing) and SLC (Society of Leather Chemists) such as whole shoe flexing, sole adhesion, flexing endurance of upper materials, SATRA-Bata sole flexing, shrinkage temperature, percentage of chromium (expressed as % Cr2O3) content, water absorbency, water vapor permeability (W.V.P) and pH. All samples showed poor sole adhesion as average separation load were recorded 13.9 kg, 14.2 kg and 20.1 kg at the toe, ball and heel areas respectively that were far below than standard values. Three sample soles were broken down after 30,000 and 40,000 cycles rendering poor flexing resistance, whereas the upper materials of four samples showed poor flexing endurance with break pipiness scale ratings 4/5 and 4 before desired 50,000 cycles. Especially sole adhesion and flexing endurance properties should be ameliorated to gratify customers' expectations.