How Birkenstock Lost Its Sole
(Just a heads up: Andy is taking the helm for today’s blog while Ann is over in AnnD’s Corner).
In case you missed the news, Birkenstock went public last week. I don’t know about you, but when I saw the headline I felt a twinge of regret. It was like the company was selling its sole to the devil.
Although I haven’t worn Birkenstock sandals for a number of years, somewhere in the back of my mind the Birkenstock allure still lingers. That’s probably why every time we drive by the now empty Birkenstock facility in Novato just off Highway 101, I experience a fleeting nostalgic “Birkenstock moment.”
By “Birkenstock moment” I’m referring to my mental image of those iconic sandals and a vague pleasant feeling about what seems to have been a less complicated and hopeful time in our world. It was a time when there was a clear distinction between those who wore wingtips and those who wore Birkenstocks. It was a time when you could figure out who to trust with the future of our planet by what they wore on their feet.
My attachment to Birkenstocks began sometime after I got home from Vietnam in 1970. I was just starting graduate school and wanted to appear to be at least somewhat “alternative” but could never let my hair grow long enough for a ponytail (it always looked like crap once it grew over my ears). So, as a proxy, I got a pair of Birkenstocks, which among my sociology grad student colleagues was the right (actually left) thing to do. I should mention here that Ann, in today’s AnnD’s Corner, writes about another thing that changed our post-army lives in a big way -Sansui. For those not familiar with Sansui you will find that it speaks for itself!
Clearly, back in the 1970’s sporting a pair of Birkenstocks was a statement. A NY Times editorialist in 1992 described the sandals as the “deja shoe” with a history of being the shoe equivalent of “granola” or the “hippie penny loafer,” in addition to being the “antithesis of style.” Robert Klara, in an AdWeek.com piece, claims that it’s hard to name a brand that elicits more “slurs and rolled eyes” than a basic pair of Birks which have been badmouthed as “Geekenstocks,” “Jesus sandals,” “Flintstone feet” and “Granolas”.
To my mind these “slurs” reflect the meaning (or soul, if you will) of the Birkenstocks I knew and loved. Their tragic transformation into a trendy fashion statement, in my opinion, was their fall from grace. We have Kate Moss to thank for that.
Klara, in his AdWeek.com article, provides this account:
Early in the summer of 1990, the British photographer Corinne Day took a then-unknown model named Kate Moss onto the beaches of Camber Sands for a photo shoot…
…when the photo feature appeared in the pages of U.K. culture mag The Face, a tremor rumbled through the fashion world. One reason was because Moss, then 15 years old, happened to be topless.
The other reason: She was wearing Birkenstocks.
My beloved Birkenstocks were never the same. As Elizabeth Patton recently noted in the NY Times, “They went from being sandals associated with “hippies and off-duty hikers, eccentric aunts and science teachers with a penchant for pairing them with ankle socks” to being “the informal footwear of choice for people everywhere who once wouldn’t have been caught dead in them.”
And it gets worse. In 2021 MSCHF, a Brooklyn fashion outfit, created the “Birkinstock,” a Birk-style shoe made from chopped-up Hermès Birkin bags. A pair can be yours for only $76,000.
Or consider that a pair of Birkenstocks worn by Steve Jobs sold at auction last year for $218,750. And to think that my last pair of worn-down Birkenstocks probably ended up at the Good Will thrift shop.
Birkenstock sandals even made a cameo appearance this year on the smash hit movie, Barbie. Evidently, sales went up appreciably because of this scene.
And when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, I discovered that our grandson Silas has jumped on the Birkenstock band wagon and he now sports a pair Birkenstock clogs (I didn’t even know they made clogs!). He finds them very comfortable and likes them. I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s wearing a soul-less shoe that’s an empty shell of what it used to be.
