How to pronounce the name of summer’s hottest shoe: Birken-sh-tock

How to pronounce the name of summer’s hottest shoe: Birken-sh-tock

“We are more like a medical item than a fashion piece,” says Jochen Gutzy, Birkenstock chief communications officer. “As our chief executive says, ‘we’re like aspirin for the feet’.”

Fashion is a relative newcomer to the Birkenstock business, with supermodel Heidi Klum launching their first official fashion collaboration in 2003. But the brand’s medical history runs far deeper than Klum’s noughties denim designs.

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The footwear company’s journey began in 1774, with German shoemaker Johann Birkenstock. It picks up pace in 1897 with great-grandson Konrad Birkenstock and his fixation on orthopaedic shoe lasts.

That foot-health fixation remains, outlasting a series of Carls and Karls in the family, which gave up control of the business in 2012. It has even survived an IPO in 2023, when the company was valued at up to $US8.3 billion ($12.8 billion).

“Walking is like breathing and drinking water, and the footbeds are the ingredient that the human being needs for healthy living,” Gutzy says.

“We care about people’s health and wellbeing. Now I think fashion is looking for the real thing because the consumers are better informed.”

Birkenstocks being assembled at the company’s German factory in Görlitz.

While Gutzy is happy with growing sales to fashion consumers, the business is not chasing collaborations, having declined potentially lucrative partnerships with former Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs, streetwear giant Supreme and Guram Gvasalia’s French fashion brand Vetements.

A year after Louis Vuitton said yes to a partnership with Supreme in 2017, which was greeted with fanfare by Vogue and GQ, Birkenstock said no.

“There’s no benefit for us except prostitution because this is just prostitution,” Reichert told The Cut.

Marc Jacobs unofficially adapted Birkenstocks for the runway for his seminal grunge spring 1993 collection for Perry Ellis. More recently, when Jacobs approached Birkenstock with sketches for an official collaboration, it was time to raise the red flag, again, Gutzy says.

“We said ‘thank you, but no’ because the ideas that he had in mind for the outsole… it might get some attention out there, but from an orthopedic standpoint, it’s wrong, so let’s not do it.

“We feel comfortable with what we’re doing. When I joined the company in 2012, we produced 12.3 million pairs. Now we are sitting [at] around 40 million. We plan on doubling that capacity in the coming years.”

At Birkenstock factories outside the picturesque German town of Görlitz, automated machines are being introduced alongside the 1900 workers supervising the production of cork innersoles, the cutting of leather and precise placement of buckles.

During a workshop, where I designed my own pair of sandals (sorry Supreme and Marc Jacobs) I learnt that it’s pronounced Birken-sh-tock. Say the name correctly and no one will question your decision to wear sandals with socks.

An off-duty Gigi Hadid in New York. Right: Birkenstock “Boston Big Buckle” clogs.

An off-duty Gigi Hadid in New York. Right: Birkenstock “Boston Big Buckle” clogs.

Birkenstock manufactures 95 per cent of its shoes in Germany, and has a factory outpost in Portugal. Last month the company said it had bought a facility near Dresden to further increase its manufacturing capacity.

Entrepreneur Margot Fraser distributed the shoes through Californian health food stores in the ’60s, cementing their hippie reputation for crunchy granola feet. The US is still crucial to the brand’s success.

In Australia, Marcel Goerke pioneered an appetite for the footwear, challenging the supremacy of the thong as summer footwear in 1992, with a catalogue aimed at the local market. In 1993 Birkenstock opened its first store in Melbourne. Sydney had to wait until 2024.

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“Marcel was raised in a family that distributed Birkenstock shoes over the span of three generations and then moved to Australia,” says Gutzy. “Australian consumers understand the product. It’s one of the markets with the highest per capita usage of Birkenstock products worldwide.”

In the ’90s Goerke noticed that Birkenstocks wore down more quickly in Australia than in Germany, and pushed a repairs program. Last year more than 5000 pairs were repaired in Australia.

“They are designed to be repaired,” Gutzy says.

Having found their feet in the world of fashion, Birkenstock has one more obstacle to face.

“Most consumers, especially women, buy shoes that are too small and too tight,” Gutzy says.

“It’s a misunderstanding that think small feet and shoes are more cute. That might be the case, but it’s super unhealthy.”

The Cinderella complex and future fashion partnerships will all be dealt with using a brand philosophy espoused by Gutzy that is appropriately 50 per cent German and 50 per cent hippie: “Keep focused, keep disciplined, be humble and enjoy the ride.”

The writer travelled to Germany as a guest of Birkenstock.

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