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  • Pentagon approach
  • Research
  • Design and Development
  • Craftmanship
  • Customer service
  • Future

    Pentagon approach

    Sky Soles puts its heart, soul and countless design hours into crafting bespoke footwear for the uniformed aviation professional.

    Every style has been meticulously designed to provide maximum quality and comfort for every aviation adventure. A need for comfortable, technologically advanced, custom designed shoes was the cornerstone behind the Sky Soles brand.

    We achieve this by using the "Pentagon Approach”, a five-step process comprising research, design and development, craftsmanship, customer service and future thinking.

    Research

    Our mission of delivering exceptional quality and comfort could only be achieved by the significant research undertaken to deliver specialised aviation footwear. Sky Soles prefers to work closely with the customer base through a dedicated "wear test crew".

    We collaborate with the end customer of our product to meet the goal of improving their experience. Sky Soles also tailors our materials and designs to the route network climatic conditions of the airline. Our significant research into the aviation environment, cabin atmospheric conditions and biomechanics of the foot, assist the conception of our designs.

    Design and Development

    Sky Soles believes in the fashion-ability of occupational footwear, and have designed our collection to be functional yet fashionable. A uniform is a complete product and footwear is an integral part of this.

    All of our designs are made from the sole up. As part of this bespoke design opportunity, it allows your business the opportunity to influence our designs as desired. Whether this be signature leathers, branding, heel heights, last shapes, different size gradients and widths the full Sky Soles design team will be at your disposal.

    Our focus on innovation is paramount. Our designs feature quality leathers, oil and acid resistance, anti-slip soles, hardened toe puffs, airport friendly construction, and anti-static properties, See how we innovate.

    Craftmanship

    Production

    Ron Clarke and Sons currently works with factories throughout France, Germany, Italy, Albania, Romania, Turkey and China. When developing the Sky Soles range, we reviewed the craftsmanship and suitability of each factory. Our factories in Dongguan, China were best suited to this collection of footwear for a number of reasons. The Sky Soles factories are exclusive to Ron Clarke and Sons and are experts in the making of comfort women's and men's shoes. This exclusivity allows us to manage the output from the factories, allowing for a quicker stock turnaround time for Sky Soles product. As the factories are dedicated to Sky Soles they have significant experience with our designs of aviation specialised footwear. This improves the quality and increases consistency in quality also. Dongguan, China has some of the world's best access to new innovative componentry and materials, which Sky Soles factories keep fully stocked for faster production timelines.

    Quality control

    Sky Soles representatives are on average present in our factories five business days a month. Outside our physical presence, we conduct regular meetings with our factory managers directing the entire production process. This allows Sky Soles to complete our own Quality Control (QC) at every stage of production. The Sky Soles team individually source our leathers and componentry from suppliers. Our hands-on approach in production ensures the highest quality standards, which ultimately results in the best final product. Most importantly, our 49 years in the footwear industry results in the interception of quality issues before they normally arise.

    Customer service

    Here at Sky Soles we believe in a hollistic approach to customer service including all stakeholders from end users to design team. As part of this service we include an SOP (Standard operating procedure) Care Guide with the product to enhance the customer experience as well as a microfibre shoe bag.

    There is nothing better than talking to master fitters, or to the designers directly if the shoe isn’t agreeing with your foot. The team from Sky Soles are always available via our direct email to provide a personalised customer support experience on the intricacies of manufacturing and fitting. Most issues arise during the wearing in process, and the team at Sky Soles have countless “home- based” remedies that can help the leather get to know a crew member better. Sky Soles constantly compiles our interactions with crew. This allows us to improve future designs as well as create a dedicated service guide which a uniform department can distribute to crew for advanced product support.

    Future

    Fashion monitoring; As fashion evolves the Sky Soles styling will change accordingly, remaining within the set aviation uniform guidelines. We also constantly monitor breakthroughs in material science looking for ways to further innovate our product into the future.

    Our current development pipeline includes; heel interlock systems, moulded insole boards, further footbed comfort and orthotic friendly removable footbeds. This research and development reinforces our focus on constant innovation.

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