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Expert has a life long history and involvement in intellectual property and shoe design, asmore fully set forth in her resume. She has desinged shoes for the leading US, German, Italian and UK shoe companies and has served as an expert witness/consultant in very large patent infringement cases involving shoe design.
She has worked in the Shoe Industry in various capacities for over 45 years and currently own a footwear design consultancy business which she founded in 1973.
Through her work and her family’s work she has amassed a large collection of footwear related paraphernalia including amongst other things catalogues, books, magazines, photographs, pullovers, prototypes, lasts, components and materials from around the world. As far as she knows she owns one of the largest collections of private reference data on footwear design and constructions in the UK.
She graduated in 1960 from Leicester Polytechnic (now know as De Montfort University) with a graduate of the British Boot and Shoe Institute (equivalent to an industrial degree) in pattern cutting/design, science of materials, shoe technology and management. Later she also obtained by examination the Associateship of the British Boot & Shoe Institute. During and following her training she worked for her father’s design consultancy and pattern making company. As part of her training, she was sent to other footwear firms to learn different aspects of shoemaking. During training she worked for Nu Stylo Footwear Co Ltd and Airbourne Shoes Ltd. After training she worked for Portland Shoes Ltd, Leicester and Finn Shoes Ltd as Senior Designer.

She has been involved in the design of lasts (blocks or shape on which the shoe is made) Measurements to fit the foot are of the utmost importance. Knowledge of foot fitting is vital.She has been involved in designing many soles for sole manufacturers and shoe manufacturers for numerous different constructions including a sole air system for a well known company.Through her business she has produced for sole manufacturing companies the first model soles (usually made from wood or sheet wax = precision from an engineer’s blue-print) which is then used as a model to produce the moulds for production soles.She has been involved in many different factories in various parts of the world and so has observed closely many different types of setups and practices.She has been fortunate to have worked with some of the leading most advanced and innovative materials in their time for producing shoes for extreme conditions. These include Thinsulate/Polar Fleece for snow/cold conditions. (Employer was the winner of Malden Mills Apex Award Worldwide 2000) for this category. Neoprene/Stealth Rubber for water based conditions and non-slip aquatic activities and she hasworked with materials that are breathable and waterproof and many other materials which are not extreme condition orientated.