Have a look contained in the manufacturing facility the place your Birkenstocks are made

Standing in a faceless enterprise park in Görlitz, east Germany, you wouldn’t think about the Willy Wonka wizardry taking place inside its community of huge hangars. Quinoa-looking cork granules whizz by clear pipes, webs of glue drip from outdated machines and leathers of all colors are stretched and punched into Matisse-style cut-outs. It’s half laboratory, half artisan workshop: it’s the place your Birkenstocks are made.

In all places you look, human palms and mechanical arms coexist in purposeful choreography. In addition to mind-blowingly hi-tech machines, there are staff wielding the sorts of instruments that shoemakers would have used tons of of years in the past: bread knives are used to trim the jute in a single nook, while robotic cutters hint laser-sharp outlines throughout sprawling hides in one other.

A tour of Birkenstock‘s Görlitz manufacturing facility

‘In our manufacturing, some steps stay fully guide, others are half-automated, and some are absolutely automated,’ says Markus Baum, Birkenstock’s chief product officer. ‘For sure processes, we’ve even co-developed machines with companions to satisfy our requirements. We introduce innovation the place it is sensible, by no means for its personal sake. Progress for us should all the time serve goal.’

In Görlitz, we’re a world away from the cobbled streets of the founders’ 18th-century Frankfurt (as soon as an epicentre of shoemaking), however the ideas stay the identical. Craftsmanship here’s a mixture of curiosity and continuity; understanding what can change, and what should all the time keep the identical. ‘It’s all about stability,’ Baum provides. Some supplies can solely be labored on by people, and a few can solely be finished by machines.

Contemplating Birkenstocks all nonetheless have a hand-crafted component, the dimensions of manufacturing is astonishing. Two soccer fields’ value of leather-based – principally from European suppliers in Italy and Spain – are lower every day. The model’s well-known cork ‘Fussbett’, or footbed, remains to be the beating coronary heart of the operation, and even when Birkenstock have collaborated with manufacturers like Dior, Rick Owens and Jil Sander, it’s the one factor that noone is allowed to vary. The footbed has change into the model’s literal and philosophical basis and is completely suited to in the present day’s wellness-driven world.

Within the manufacturing facility, the footbeds are baked in metal moulds and emerge sizzling, pliable and fragrant, like loaves of bread from an oven. Each single one remains to be made in Germany, some extent of satisfaction that underscores the model’s insistence on authenticity. ‘Birkenstock’s shoemaking custom dates again to 1774, and with that heritage comes a deep understanding of our craft,’ Baum explains.

Although Birkenstock has been round for the reason that 18th century (when Johann Adam Birkenstock first registered as a shoemaker in a small Hessian village close to Frankfurt), it’s remarkably up to date. Laser techniques map every conceal like a topographical scan, tracing imperfections earlier than slicing out the sandal’s acquainted shapes. Although for the extra experimental 1774 vary, produced in smaller runs, all the pieces remains to be hand-cut, particularly for the Boston clog’s advanced patterns or for choosing the softest a part of the conceal for a entrance strap.

After practically 200 years of manufacturing, it was the Sixties countercultural wave of Birkenstock-wearing American hippies that made the sneakers an iconic image of pure dwelling. Since then, a sequence of high-profile followers have exploded the model into what we all know it as in the present day: Steve Jobs photographed carrying them in 1973; designer Andre Walker within the gladiatorial Athens in 1983; Kate Moss shot carrying them in The Face journal in 1993.

However one way or the other Birkenstock is proof against vogue’s regular vagaries. They need it to stay that means. ‘We keep true to our goal: empowering folks to stroll as nature supposed,’says Baum. ‘A common concept rooted within the perception that everybody deserves to stroll naturally. And that’s timeless. We’ve by no means been a lot inquisitive about or had been ever outlined by developments. We draw from a wealthy product archive of greater than 700 silhouettes and from the cultural capital that comes with it.’

That archive acts as an inner information and helps the model navigate hype cycles. And far as they like to dip into the archive, they’re additionally all about innovating for the long run. ‘We’re bringing newness to leather-based by design and texture and proceed to paved the way in pioneering finishes and enhanced wearability,’ Baum says. ‘On the similar time, we’re increasing manufacturing of our water-ready types. We innovate wherever it genuinely provides worth to the product, perform is what drives us.’

Whether or not it’s with luxurious homes or rising designers, collaborations are approached with the identical goal. ‘Collaboration, for us, is a subject of experimentation,’ says Baum. ‘We worth the contemporary perspective that model outsiders convey to our merchandise and to our core values of high quality, perform, and custom.’