Shoemaker sizes up world market with top product

CARL Franz Bally was a pioneer in the shoe field in Switzerland.

The first shoes were produced in the town of Schonenwerd in 1851.

Bally had been on a business trip to Paris and returned with the idea of producing shoes.

He affiliated a shoe factory to the elastics factory he had taken over from his father.

At first, he met with little success. People resisted the idea, being more used to having their shoes made by shoemakers.

But a breakthrough came when Bally got the chance to export to South America.

The opening of the English market and, consequently, his presence in the European colonial empire of that time, formed the basis of his success.