ARS Developments ck 1998/069596/23 t/a The Footwear Design & Technology School
Our Staff
Staff of the footwear design school
Glyn Giani
Glyn started his design career in 1997 when he completed his Fashion Design diploma at the prestigous GFD Academy of design and started his own boutique. In search of more bussiness experience he completed his BCompt articles in 1995 and joined Watson shoes as an apprentice designer.
In the first year he learnt footwear design and shoemaking under a veteran shoemaker Jacob Anagnostakis and mastered every shoe construction by hand, as well as every shoemaking process and machine in the factory. By 1996 he was manager of the pattern engineering and prototyping department and beta tested the shoemaster CAD systems which has just entered the market.
In 1997 Glyn had completed his Diploma in Footwear and Footwear Materials Technology through Rhodes and His Advanced Diploma in Footwear Model Design at ARS Sutoria, MIlan, Italy and followed this up with further training at Bally in Switzerland.
He returned to SA and started freelancing and teaching in 1998.
Glyn designed for the following brands
- Bally of Switzerland
- Watson
- Speedy Duck
- Grasshopper
- Step on airs
- Young Clinic
- Trailbuster
- Omega
- Jim Green
- Groundcover
- Glyn Giani
- Bourbon
- Anna Christi
- Moertoe
- Natural Steps
- Le Maitre
- Fram
- Premier Safety
- Pit Bull
Glyn Giani's qualifications
- Diploma in Fashion design – GFD Academy of Design
- BCompt Articles – KB&G
- Dipl in Footwear and Footwear Materials Technology FISA/ Rhodes
- Adv Dipl in Footwear Model Design – ARS Sutoria, Milan Italy
- Qualified Facilitator
- Registered Facilitator (pending registration)
- Registered assessor (pending registration)
- Registered Moderator (pending registration)
Special Achievements
- – Only known fully qualified footwear technologist, designer and manager in South Africa. (qualified all rounder)
- – Only known true cobbler left in the country (can make last, design, cut, and assemble a top quality shoe by hand)
- – Qualified with honours at ARS Sutoria Italy (Advanced footwear design)
- – When designing for Bally of Switzerland, Bally made more money from royalties in SA than they made from own manufacturing in the rest of the world.
- – When the Omega factory was about to be closed I turned it around in six months and sold record volumes of 350 000 pairs of one sandal for the next season.
- – Successfully planned and implemented three factories in three years including management and product development and marketing.
- – Successfully launched the footwear design and technology school (the first in South Africa).
- – Represents the Gauteng Fashion Council, SA Bureau of Standards Design council,
- – Helped on the M&FP Seta curriculum development committee to develop the National Diploma in Footwear Design.
- – Planned and implemented the National Footwear and Leather cluster with VUT for the DTi. Unfortunately this collapsed when Glyn left due to bad management.
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