Professional Development & Events

FDRA is the footwear industry’s leading educator, hosting a variety of events from webinars to major summits that focus on industry challenges, best practices, and common solutions. When you’re involved in FDRA and participate in events, you stay connected and empowered to navigate the constantly changing global footwear landscape.

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FDRA Sustainability Roundtable

Boston  |  Thursday, February 6, 2020

This FDRA members-only roundtable meeting invites product development, materials, and sourcing teams to join us for critical discussions around industry standards for sustainability, best practices, and all things we can collaborate on industry-wide to save money and increase impact. This event takes place at the NE Materials Show in Boston.

Footwear Executive Summit

Washington, DC  |  Wednesday–Thursday, March 18–19, 2020

Join FDRA and 200 footwear executives at the Capital Hilton in Washington, DC, just steps away from the White House. At this annual summit, we will network and hear footwear leaders discuss how they are guiding their companies in changing times with a focus on changes and insights to footwear consumers and retail, and how current politics and policy are impacting our industry’s bottom lines.

Shoe Courses For Designers and Pattern Makers

New York City  |  Boston  |  Los Angeles

The Arsutoria School believes that a career in the field of shoes must be funded on a deep knowledge of the product. Arsutoria offers courses in the field of shoe design, shoe pattern making and shoe manufacturing.

*Refund policy for FDRA events:

FDRA will issue no refunds for cancelled registrations for its summits less than 30 days prior to the event date (this includes FDRA’s executive summit in DC, Asia summit, sourcing summit, materials and innovation summit, and FTDC). There are no refunds issued for cancelled registrations less than 48 hours from workshops. FDRA members can transfer their registration to another attendee for the same event.  Any questions on this policy should be directed to Andy Polk.

View FDRA’s 2019 events archive.