Birkenstock

What they do

Birkenstock makes sandals, clogs and closed shoes built on its anatomically shaped footbed, along with insoles and care products. The family traces its shoemaking roots to 1774 in Hesse. The modern business was shaped by Konrad Birkenstock, who developed a contoured insole and registered the "Fussbett" trademark in 1925, and by Karl Birkenstock, who standardised a mass-produced footbed in the early 1960s.

Why it matters

Birkenstock sells an idea as much as a shoe: that footwear should follow the shape of the foot rather than squeeze it into fashion. The footbed, a layered construction of suede, jute and cork, supports the arch and lets the toes move freely. For decades it was seen as a health shoe. More recently designers have embraced it, and collaborations have pushed the sandals into the fashion mainstream without changing their basic form.

Products to know

• Arizona: the two-strap sandal introduced in 1973 and the brand's best known model.
• Madrid: the single-strap original.
• Clogs and closed shoes: built on the same footbed.

The German angle

Birkenstock insists that its footwear is made in Germany, and it has invested in expanding domestic capacity rather than moving it offshore. Its ownership story is also telling. A family firm for more than two centuries, it sold control in 2021 to L Catterton, the private equity firm backed by LVMH, together with the Arnault family's holding company, and then listed in New York rather than Frankfurt in 2023. The product, however, remains stubbornly unchanged.