Footwear

Abstract

A boot ( 1 ) or other item of footwear is made up of a rubber sole unit ( 2 ) mounted to an upper comprising both leather and rubber components, for example a foot piece ( 3 ) of rubber and a shaft piece ( 4 ) of leather having a napped outer surface, such as suede, particularly pigskin suede. The boot ( 1 ) is assembled with an edge of the rubber foot piece ( 3 ) overlapping the outer surface of the leather shaft piece ( 4 ), and a rubber tape ( 11 ) binding the edges ( 13 ) of the shaft piece ( 4 ) together. The whole boot ( 1 ) is then vulcanised, bonding the leather and rubber components sealingly together. The boot ( 1 ) or other item of footwear is attractive, durable and waterproof.

1 . An item of footwear having upper means including a first component comprising a rubber material sealingly mounted by vulcanisation to a second component comprising a leather material having a nap on an outer surface. 
   
   
       2 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said second component comprises natural leather. 
   
   
       3 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said second component comprises suede leather. 
   
   
       4 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 3 , wherein said second component comprises pig suede. 
   
   
       5 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said first component comprises a synthetic rubber material. 
   
   
       6 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , further comprising sole means of rubber, sealingly mounted by vulcanisation to the upper means. 
   
   
       7 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 6 , wherein said sole means and said first and second components of the upper means are substantially simultaneously sealingly mounted together by vulcanisation. 
   
   
       8 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein a said second component comprises a shaft piece of the item of footwear. 
   
   
       9 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , further comprising elongate rubber tape means extending along a line of contact between selected components, in overlapping contact with and sealingly vulcanised to an outer surface of each adjoining component. 
   
   
       10 . A method of producing an item of footwear, comprising the steps of providing a first component and a second component of an upper means of the footwear, the first component comprising rubber and the second component comprising leather having a nap on an outer surface thereof, assembling said components to form the upper means and vulcanising the upper means to form a watertight seal between the first and second components. 
   
   
       11 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , comprising the further steps of providing sole means of the footwear comprising rubber, assembling the upper means and the sole means to form the footwear and vulcanising the footwear to form a watertight seal between the upper means and the sole means. 
   
   
       12 . A method as claimed in  claim 11 , wherein the second and first components are vulcanised together to form the upper means and the upper means is vulcanised to the sole means in a single vulcanisation step. 
   
   
       13 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the step of producing said second component from suede leather. 
   
   
       14 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the step of producing said first component from synthetic rubber. 
   
   
       15 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , wherein the assembling comprises applying elongate rubber tape means to extend overlappingly along selected joints of the footwear, prior to vulcanisation. 
   
   
       16 . A method as claimed in  claim 15 , wherein said elongate rubber tape means are applied to join leather to leather. 
   
   
       17 . An item of footwear as claimed in  claim 1 , wherein said first component comprises a neoprene rubber material. 
   
   
       18 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the step of producing the second component from pig suede. 
   
   
       19 . A method as claimed in  claim 10 , further comprising the step of producing said first component from neoprene rubber.