Shoe People Have Been Telling That To The Public, As Well As To Themselves For Generations. And Most People Have Come To Believe It.

by William A. Rossi

COPYRIGHT 1998 Fairchild Publications Inc.

Well, it's a clear-cut case of self-deception, of self-denial. We've put a twist on Shakespeare's line: "The trouble, dear Brutus, is not with our shoes, but with our feet."

The reference here is to foot hygiene. It's become a massive hoax costing consumers an estimated $200 million a year for foot anti-perspirants, anti-deodorants, special foot soaps and other stuff for pedic hygiene.

Let's look at the evidence. First, the estimated 1 billion people of the world who never wear shoes never have foot hygiene problems like offensive odors, rashes and fungus.

While their feet are exposed to dirt, ground chemicals, bacteria and other toxic elements, they habitually wash or rinse their feet once to several times a day. A matter of a few seconds each time.

Second, their feet are constantly exposed to fresh air and sunlight, which destroy or counteracts bacteria and ground chemicals. Foot odors have little chance of developing.

Now, by contrast, take the shod foot. It's enclosed in a snug-fit shoe 12 to 16 hours a day. No ventilation, no sunlight, no breathing room. Just caged in a dark, cramped, suffocating cell.

Inside the shoe a fearsome array of hostile furies are at work: heat, perspiration, acids and salts, bacteria, darkness, hundreds of active shoe chemicals. An ideal climate in which billions of bacteria thrive to feast on foot and shoe alike. From this anti-hygienic environment, offensive odors arise. This applies to the feet of all shoe-wearing people, some much worse than others.

Back to those "foot hygiene" products. Once these special soaps, deodorants, anti-perspirants, "fresheners" and powders are applied, you feel pedically fresh and hygienic.

Then those nice fresh feet go back into the hostile climate of the shoes, exposed again to all those malevolent elements. All the foot hygiene is instantly neutralized and made totally ineffective. All gone to waste.

Does the foot have a battle to remain clean, fresh and hygienic in that malevolent environment? Consider that each day a half pint of foot moisture—at least 25 gallons a year—pour into our shoes with corrosive salts and acids.

Billions of predatory bacteria thrive in an ideal climate—heat, humidity, darkness, moisture—feasting on high-protein diet of leather, cellulose and other shoe materials.

Inside-shoe temperatures range from 105 degrees to 125 degrees with virtually no ventilation. And rising from this broiling cauldron is a constant outflow of foul smells that are often annoying and embarrassing to the shoe wearer. But although we call them foot odors, they are actually almost entirely shoe odors. The world's shoeless people almost never have foot odors. For them, it's an alien idea.

The best remedy for so-called foot odors is to go barefoot for a while. The odors quickly disappear. This exposes the real culprit—the shoe.

Years ago, we used to avoid the word "comfort" in the footwear business, because we thought customers associated it with dowdy, orthopedic-look shoes. We learned differently. Today, "comfort" is the hottest concept in the business. Everyone is marketing and selling it.

Today, the terms "shoe hygiene" and "hygienic footwear" are where "comfort" were 20 years ago: floating in limbo. We think such terms are politically incorrect on the assumption that customers regard conditions such as foot perspiration and odor too personal and hence don't want to hear them when buying shoes.

Like yesterday's word "comfort," wrong again. The pharmaceutical houses and other companies have long been selling and advertising the concept of "personal hygiene" of one kind or another, including foot hygiene. They've been getting rich from the consumer response.

Which brings us to the concept of hygienic footwear. Actually, shoes are the most unhygienic thing we wear on our bodies. Everyone accepts this, except the shoe industry.

Why should people be washed, deodorized and sanitized everywhere except from the ankles down? The answer is begging to appear.

Consumers used to say, "Why can I feel comfortable everywhere except from the ankles down?" The industry finally stepped in with the shoe comfort idea and has cashed in handsomely.

Hygiene is a nice, clean, sanitary word. And the idea of hygienically controlled footwear has tremendous marketing possibilities. It could become as big as comfort is today. Possibly bigger.

There is an enormous opportunity to design and construct footwear with hygienic features such as heat, moisture, bacteria and odor control. A group of climate control features that, as a unit, create the ideal inside-shoe climate.

I am not talking here about gimmickry and quick-fixes such as a few holes punched in the upper for "ventilation," or a "coolant" spray. Instead, I am referring to some hard-nosed engineering that attacks and removes all the hostile inside-shoe conditions.

Hygiene-controlled footwear seems to be the final, but still unreached destination of genuine, full-fledged shoe comfort. A rich lode right under our feet waiting to be discovered and mined. All the footwear industry needs is the miners ready and willing to dig.

And if the mission is accomplished, a grateful public may even effect a monument in the industry's honor.