{"id":4217,"date":"2025-09-27T10:08:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T10:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2025-09-27T10:08:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T10:08:53","slug":"sexless-snug-and-still-here-the-secrets-of-birkenstocks-enduring-success-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegloss.online\/?p=4217","title":{"rendered":"Sexless, snug and still here: the secrets of Birkenstock\u2019s enduring success | Fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When two brothers called Johannes and Johann Adam Birkenstock began making shoes in a tiny hamlet near Frankfurt in the 1770s, they could never have imagined what they were starting.<\/p>\n

History doesn\u2019t record much about the first shoemaking Birkenstocks, who can be traced to a document written in 1774, the year after the Boston Tea Party<\/a>. But 251 years, eight unbroken generations and many Johanns, Johanneses, Carls and Karls later, the company that emerged from that first family business has become one of the most rampagingly successful footwear brands on the planet.<\/p>\n

Birkenstock now sells tens of millions of pairs of shoes every year (they won\u2019t say how many), giving the company a valuation of $7.5bn (\u00a35.6bn) when it floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 2023. It has been a fashion and high street success story for decades, yet still seems to boast gravity-defying growth year after year<\/a>; this week it announced<\/a> projected growth of 17.5% on last year.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Birkenstock is a \u2018purpose brand that\u2019s rooted in orthopaedics\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Birkenstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Steve Jobs wore them in the 1970s, as did Kate Moss in her breakthrough 1990 shoot for the Face<\/a>. They rose in the boho chic years, soared<\/a> during Covid and were even given an extra bounce<\/a> by the Barbie movie<\/a>. The current big seller, the Boston clog<\/a>, was hailed by British Vogue<\/a> in April as the \u201cshoe that has the fashion crowd in a chokehold\u201d \u2013 yet in 2026 the Boston will mark 50 years, entirely unchanged, since it was first introduced.<\/p>\n

How did a brand described even by some of its fans as the world\u2019s ugliest shoe become one of the world\u2019s most popular? Not by leaning into trends. \u201cFashion has never been our thing \u2013 neither then nor now,\u201d the company\u2019s CEO, Oliver Reichert, said recently, a bold choice of words from a man leading a global style brand. Instead, in perhaps the least sexy phrase ever uttered in fashion marketing, he said Birkenstock was a \u201cpurpose brand that\u2019s rooted in orthopaedics\u201d, which since its foundation had had an \u201cunquenchable interest in foot health\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Esther Addley with rolled leather at the Birkenstock factory in Bernstadt, Germany.<\/span> Photograph: Daniel Woeller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This anti-fashion approach has long been part of the company\u2019s shtick. It was Konrad Birkenstock, great-grandson of Johann Adam, who first introduced an orthopaedic shoe in 1897, making waves by his bold suggestion that right and left feet should be shaped differently.<\/p>\n

Carl, his son, insisted that shoe retailers complete a training course before they were even allowed to stock the product; when Carl\u2019s son Karl (told you \u2026) launched the Original Birkenstock Footbed Sandal at D\u00fcsseldorf shoe fair in 1963, he got a wave of ridicule and not a single order. Renamed Madrid<\/a>, that same single strap model remains one of the company\u2019s core products.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always start from the consumer and the benefit our products bring to their lives,\u201d Nico Bouyakhf, the company\u2019s president and managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, said. \u201cOur goal is to deliver the best possible experience with our unique footbed, rather than chasing short-term trends.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Models in Hamburg wear the Arizona, right, and the Boston clog, a current bestseller.<\/span> Photograph: Jeremy Moeller\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ultimately, says J\u2019Nae Phillips, a trend forecaster and creator of the Fashion Tingz<\/a> newsletter, it was precisely this fixation on function that has made Birkenstock a \u201ckind of fashion paradox: a shoe so unconcerned with style that it has become a style statement. Their \u2018anti-fashion\u2019 aesthetic taps into a deeper cultural moment where authenticity and utility are often prized over overt trendiness. In a world that cycles rapidly through fast fashion, Birkenstocks offer a stable, grounded alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Anastasia K\u0101rkli\u0146a Gabriel<\/a>, a cultural critic and author of Cultural Intelligence for Marketers, points to the brand\u2019s popularity in the 1970s US counterculture as a turning point. \u201cBirkenstock was a rebellion against mainstream American footwear. Once it was adopted by the hippies, it took on a new layer of meanings associated with spiritual freedom and a more conscious way of living.<\/p>\n

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