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You could spot them from a mile away.The German tourists with their quintessential socks-and-sandals look. Ugly yes, but verypraktischandbequem... When enough war-guilt had worn off for German tourists to start traveling the world in the 1970s they took their Birkenstocks with them and the cliché of the utterly unfashionable, dull German was born.
Comfortable sandals have a long tradition in Germany. Johann Adam Birkenstock started making them back when Fredrick the Great was at large, and the American William Scholl, who created the Dr. Scholl company in 1904, had obviously inherited his passion for comfortable footwear from his German parents.
The rise of Birkenstock, from a small-scale footwear producer employing 400 people in the nineties, to a global fashion brand over which the crème de la crème of global private equity is battling it out - sending the company’s valuation to well over €4 billion -is a symbol of Germany’s rise from boring to cool if ever there is one.
In 2019 the company employed some 3,800 people and made a profit of €129 million on annual revenues of €721.5 million. Propelled by work-from-home, sales are said to be growing by 15 percent on an annual basis. Private equity giants Permira, L Catterton, and CVC are according to the FT and Handelsblatt all interested in acquiring the footwear manufacturer, whose shoes are produced in Görlitz, right by the Polish border.
The sale will be a big success for CEO Oliver Reichert. The bearded man, who not only has a preference for sensible shoes (he owns 500 pairs…) but also for denim shirts, is the first CEO from outside the family in 250 years.
Writing these lines wearing a pair of cobalt blue Birkenstock Arizona’s (with socks obviously) I can’t help feeling a small sense of personal vindication.Since I first slipped my feet into the cool cork-reinforced leather bed of a pair of Birkenstocks in the mid-nineties I have had to endure much ridicule. Back then they drew as much skepticism and laughter as speaking German did. But as hipsters from LA to Beijing are sporting the socks-and-sandals look, and American private equity capital is desperately trying to get a piece of the brand, who’s laughing now?
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