Birkenstock History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of Birkenstock, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
Birkenstock is a shoe manufacturer headquartered in Neustadt (Wied), Germany - formally Birkenstock Orthopädie GmbH & Co. KG, in its German form. The company sells Birkenstock, a German brand of sandals and other shoes notable for their contoured cork and rubber footbeds, which conform somewhat to the shape of their wearers' feet. Representative products include the two-strap Arizona sandal and the Boston clog. Those two sentences carry the whole filing's logic: this is a footwear company organised around a footbed, and every other fact in the profile - materials, sizing, history, the American story - hangs off that single component.
Fit, Cut and the American Chapter
The fitting guidance is specific enough to keep as buying advice in the company's own terms: BIRKENSTOCK differs from other brands by its cut, which runs far towards the back of the shoe, so feet are held firmly into the footbed. The correct size and proper width of your Birkenstock sandals are the key to ensuring that your bodyweight is distributed properly across your feet. In other words, the product's promise - even, natural weight distribution over the whole sole - is conditional on fit in a way fashion footwear rarely states so bluntly, and a buyer choosing between sizes is making the decision the company itself flags as the important one.
Since 1967 these shoes have been sold in the USA, as well as elsewhere. American Margot Fraser 'discovered' Birkenstock sandals while on holiday in Germany, gained relief from a foot condition, and founded a trading company called Birkenstock Footprint Sandals, Inc., in Novato, California, based on her enthusiasm for the sandals. Renamed Birkenstock Distribution USA, Inc. in 2005, the company remained until 2007 the exclusive importer and distributor of Birkenstock name-brand products in the United States. In 2007 the owners of Birkenstock Orthopädie GmbH & Co. KG purchased their long-standing distribution partner - the point at which the American chapter folded back into the German parent.
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