the Second world war, but only after the war did footwear production on an industrial
scale start to grow.16 The first producers started their own business in the area around
1925, after a working experience in Vigevano to learn the major aspects of footwear
production.
Until the 1930s, production was still hand-made and consisted of leather goods. It
was only after the war that producers in Barletta started to introduce innovations in the
production process, thereby abandoning craftmanship in favour of industrial production:
these innovations were the partial mechanisation of production and the use of rubber
together with leather. A major reason for such a change in production techniques is the
severe lack of leather as an input in the aftermath of the war. Until the mid 1950s the
use of rubber as a raw material prevailed over plastic, which will be adopted since then
together with new production techniques. This change in inputs paralleled the one
occured in the Montebelluna district (Treviso), for ski footwear. In both cases, the new
material implied a radical change in production techniques as well as in the linkages
between producers in the district and actors outside the district (specialised suppliers of
machinery).
The insertion of Barletta in this new value chain - low market plastic shoes - very
different from the traditional leather shoes market, allowed local firms to become the
major producers of this new product lines at the international level. Since the 1960s
international buyers visited Barletta to explore the ability of local firms to meet with
consumers’ demand. German buyers were to first to get to know Barletta from their
previous suppliers in Marche - who already produced up market items.
Among the major competitive factors, Barletta could take advantage of relatively
low production costs, but also on the ability to rapidly adapt their production structure
to market changes and to introduce new machinery. Indeed, since the mid 1960s, local
producers started to invest in machinery for input production, whose suppliers were
mainly located in Veneto (Padova) and Tuscany. The introduction of these new
machines for input production allowed to take advantage of the great increase in
productivity of new production techniques.
Since the early 1970s, these new machines allow local firms to specialise in sporting
shoes with plastic soles. The district followed a particular model of production based on
16 This section draws heavily on information reported in a previous case study by D’Ercole (?).
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