how shoe soles are made
A shoe is only as good as its soles - and the world's best soles are made right here in France. In Valenciennes, a town 50 miles north-east of Paris, you'll find Reebok’s parent company, known as Raoul. The plant has been making shoe soles for 70 years. There are six production lines, where workers make rubber or PVC sole moulds for shoes manufactured all over the world. In total there are about 800 employees who work at the plant - with women dominating: around 600 of them (75%). Workers feed polyurethane and polypropylene into huge machines that form the moulds. They then leave them in a drying oven for about four hours before bringing them back to their original size by stretching them over a metal frame. Then, it's off to the next production line, where workers tighten wires around the moulds to make sure they keep their form. They repeat this operation several times until the sole is tight and supple enough to be added to a shoe upper. The process is extremely
