A brand reborn
A safety footwear brand that pioneered the widespread use of steel-toe boots in the 1940s has been relaunched and is reclaiming its Northamptonshire roots.
It is a little over a year since Netherlands-based International Brands Group (IBG) announced its intention to relaunch safety footwear brand Totectors in the UK. In that time, the brand has established a new base close to Totectors’ roots in Rushden, Northamptonshire, and launched an initial collection.
It has built strong relationships in the construction industry, set up a distribution arrangement for general tradespeople and is preparing to roll out its offering to electrical contractors, too. It was also the winner in the ‘best innovation in footwear’ category of the 2022 Professional Clothing Industry Association Worldwide (PCIAW) awards. It has, therefore, been a busy 12 months for IBG and for Totectors general manager, Rhys Elavia, but he says he has enjoyed every minute.
In the extra thinking time that most companies had during the covid-19 lockdowns, IBG reflected on its presence in the UK market and decided that increasing its offering in the safety footwear sector would be a good step for it to take. IBG is run by Ed Van Wezel, whose father, Frank, founded footwear brand Hi-Tec in 1974. The Van Wezels ran Hi-Tec and spin-off safety shoe brand Magnum in the UK until 2010, when they relocated the company’s headquarters to Amsterdam.
Family ties
It was after selling the Hi-Tec business in 2018 that Ed Van Wezel set up IBG. Rhys Elavia came on board in 2021, with a background in sales in footwear and workwear, including a spell at Hi-Tec, making him ideal for the role.
Interestingly, though, his ties to Totectors go back substantially further. His grandfather worked on the factory floor of the original Totectors in Rushden for 35 years. His parents had jobs there as well, his father in sales and his mother in the office, and met at work.
Totectors was the idea of a well known Northamptonshire family, the Dentons. George Henry Denton was the fourth-generation managing director of the family footwear firm during World War II. He had taken a keen interest in early samples of steel-toe boots that had arrived in Europe from the US in 1938 and advised the government in London that it should adopt this innovation to support the war effort. Inexperienced workers had been recruited to keep coal-mines running after many miners joined the armed forces. Foot injuries were common in the mines and left many unfit for work; Mr Denton argued that protective toe-caps could solve the problem.
He was sent to the US to ask patent-owner Arthur Williams to share the secrets of the steel-toe boot and managed to win the confidence of the inventor not through impassioned speeches but by quietly playing cards with him one weekend. The Totector name launched and production of the special footwear began in Rushden in 1944. By the 1970s, Totectors was the banner under which the Denton-family had combined a number of its footwear businesses. The group continued to push for innovation in protective shoes and boots but in the early years of this century it found it was unable to continue in business. For the relaunch almost 20 years on, IBG secured the Totectors name from investors and has wasted no time in building the brand back up.
Image-conscious
It was of interest to Rhys Elavia and IBG that the Dentons had focused on fitting the protective toe-caps into styles that workers were already used to wearing and wanted to keep wearing. Inspired by the same principle, they examined closely the shapes and styles of the best-selling trainers in the UK market and it is these styles that have inspired the inaugural collection that the relaunched Totectors has brought to market.
“Everyone wants to be comfortable,” Mr Elavia says, “including at work. But this is also aimed at the next generation, who are very image-conscious.” His experience of the workwear scene suggests to him that, while there are clothing and footwear brands in the UK with excellent technical products, the protective shoe and apparel market is behind in terms of style, fashion and marketing.
Toe-caps now are made from aluminium to provide high levels of protection with lower-weight materials. The products also have leather uppers for durability and breathability, a rubber outsole for lasting slip-protection, an anti-penetration plate in a composite material for flexibility, an external heel cradle and a medial arch support. There are four products in the inaugural range, each with Denton in the name in homage to Totectors’ progenitors.
Selling-points
The rejuvenated brand struck an early distribution deal with Travis Perkins (TP), a builders’ merchant and home improvement retail group. TP even hosted a formal launch event for Totectors in Northampton in August. Since then, another retail group specialising in the sale of tools and building materials, Toolstation, has begun to distribute Totector footwear, with promising early results. And in the weeks ahead, IBG is confident of finalising a similar deal with a third major distribution partner, a prominent distributor of electrical, heating, lighting and plumbing equipment. All of which suggests to Rhys Elavia that 2023 promises to be just as busy for Totectors as its first year back in market has been.
New owner of the brand, IBG, studied popular athletic shoe styles before designing the relaunched Totectors brand’s inaugural collection.
All Credits: IBG
