By Liesel Schmidt
Look down at your feet. What shoes are you wearing? How long have you been wearing them, and what roads have those shoes travelled?
If you’re like most of us, you don’t give much thought to your shoes beyond how they’ll serve you—if they look good, if they feel good, how well they’ll navigate the terrain ahead. And sure, your shoes have a personal history attached to you: where they’ve taken you, where you’ve taken them, the memories you’ve made in them (some good, some bad, some best left in the dust behind you). But, here’s something you probably never think about when you pull those shoes out of the closet: They have a history all their own.
Interestingly, some of the oldest shoe companies are hundreds of years old—and the name Birkenstock ranks near the top of the pile. And no, they weren’t invented for the free-love-giving, Woodstock-bound hippie era of the late ’60s and ’70s. Get a cup of coffee and settle in—it’s story time at Blue Bay Lifestyle Co.
This one actually begins in 1774, with a cobbler in the small German village of Langen-Bergheim named Johann Adam Birkenstock. Yep. That Birkenstock. Over the next hundred years, Johann and the men of his family mastered their craft of shoe making, passing down techniques to generation after generation of fathers to sons.
And then something incredible happened. In 1896, Konrad Birkenstock created something that, for the times, was pretty profound: a flexible footbed. It was kind of unheard of—shoes of the era were rigid, narrow and conformed to the dictates of fashion, making them stylish, but decidedly uncomfortable and unsupportive. Konrad’s groundbreaking idea was that footwear should conform to the human foot—not the other way around. To bring his vision to life, he began producing contoured insoles, essentially revolutionizing the shoe industry around the world.
By 1902, Konrad’s first design had been refined into the first contoured arch support. Of course, it wasn’t anything glamorous—and it was sold mainly to shoemakers who put them into custom footwear. But it addressed a problem that, during the industrial age, was becoming more of an issue. Factory workers who stood for hours at a machine or spent their days on cobblestone streets needed relief from the pain caused by stiff, nonconforming shoes. Birkenstock’s arch supports offered it.
In the 1930s, Birkenstock’s footbeds had found their way into medical use. Orthopedists, podiatrists and even soldiers realized the benefits of proper foot support, but the product was still only considered a medical tool. It was still decades away from becoming a fashion statement.
Birkenstock’s time to shine came in 1963, when Karl Birkenstock launched the company’s first sandal—complete with a deep, anatomically designed footbed. Marketed as a fitness sandal, the Madrid was touted to strengthen leg muscles and promote natural gait. But here’s the kicker: Birkenstock had finally stepped into the limelight and was no longer hidden inside a shoe.
By the 1970s, Birkenstocks had become part of the uniform of American counterculture. College students, artists and free thinkers embraced them as a symbol of nonconformity—they were authentic, comfortable and flew in the face of fashion norms. Hippies wore them to festivals and protests, while professors wore them in the lecture halls of colleges and universities. Without having to utter a word, the sandal’s signature wide straps and unpretentious cork soles spoke the language of a lifestyle that was all about simplicity and questioning authority.
That representation of the counterculture remained for decades, and Birkenstock continued as a niche non-fashion fashion statement until the 1990s and early 2000s, when minimalism came back into vogue and comfort became chic. Designers began collaborating with Birkenstock, sending its sandals down Paris and New York runways, and even celebrities began wearing them.
Nearly 250 years after it began, Birkenstock is more than a shoe brand—it’s a cultural touchstone that straddles the line of so many categories: medical, practical, fashionable, sustainable. It’s the best of all worlds. And here’s something we love: Birkenstock still proudly manufactures in Germany, still uses its original cork-latex formula, still maintains its focus on foot health.
Now that you know the history of the shoe on your foot, we’ll teach you how to say it properly: Beer-ken-shtok.
Want your own pair? Whether it’s your first or your 50th, come into Blue Bay and check out our selection of Birkenstock Arizona sandals, in great colors for the fall season ahead. Pair your new Birkenstocks with some of the other pieces we love at Blue Bay—like versatile Liverpool denim, tailored jackets, trousers, and easy blouses; laid-back athleisure from Vuori; or boho-chic 14k gold-filled waterproof jewelry from Bara Boheme—for a look that’s effortless, stylish and uniquely yours.
You never know where your shoes will take you—or what history they’ll make with you while they’re on your feet. Follow us on Instagram at @bluebaylifestyle and share a pic of yours with us. Show us where your Birks have been!
