It is indeed difficult to imagine that for generations members of Birkenstock family have been continuing with this business of making shoes that was started by Johann Birkenstock way back in 1774 when he toiled as a shoemaker in a remote area of Germany.
In 1890's, Konrad Birkenstock, a descendant of Johann and a traditional shoemaker himself had a very innovative idea. He decided to make a shoe that really followed the curves of a human foot and successively produced such shoe. But all such shoes were custom made. It was a big success till a decade later automation came in for making shoes on a mass scale. Consequently the demand for custom-made shoes dwindled.
But that did not really prove a deterrent for the Birkenstock family that created an insert, which would actually hug the contours of a foot, specifically its arch. The best feature of the design was that the insert could be used with almost any shoe. For the next five decades Konrad and his son Carl continued to improve and refine the design of their creation. This unique and useful product became so popular that it was nicknamed as "footbed supports" and the word "footbed" was registered as a trademark of Birkenstock.
In 1954, Karl, grandson of Konard became a board member of family business. He had never been happy with the idea that the family business be known as makers of shoe inserts that had a rather limited number of customers, more so with bad feet.
He wished to produce such a comfortable shoe for a common man that would make him feel as comfortable as if he were walking barefoot. It was indeed a novel concept, as most of the people considered shoes as the most unnatural piece of apparel ever devised just for providing protection and not comfort to your feet. He had a second look at his grandfather's idea of flexible arch supports and coupled it with his personal knowledge of foot flexes of a shoe while in motion.
At last after ten years of research and design the world was introduced to its first model of Birkenstock sandals, the Madrid.
Sometime during 1966, just in time for the Woodstock generation, a lady by the name of Margot Fraser while visiting her native country, Germany, purchased her very first pair of foot bed sandals. Soon she realized that the sandals she had purchased, to a great extent relieved the terrible foot pain she had been suffering since childhood. She brought Birkenstock flip flops to America for the first time and the rest as we know is history.
Today, Birkenstock offers more than four hundred different styles of its sandals, clogs, flip flops and shoes. Birkenstock sandals are produced in a wide range of materials, colors, and sizes. Every year new materials and styles are added. The designers and the manufacturers continue to be as creative as ever in their product design, which undoubtedly is their hallmark. They continue to look ugly, are still comparatively expensive, but above all probably still the best footwear in the world.
