This Is How Birkenstock Makes Birkenstocks
Birkenstocks are great because they are simple. Leather strap, cork footbed, rubber sole. Perfect, neutral, ordinary. But, when I was given the rare opportunity to create my own pair, I opted for crazy. Because I am crazy. But also because, if you’re going to be one of the only people on the planet with a bespoke Birk, shouldn’t it be something that no one else can have?
In mid-October, I became one of the few people not employed by Birkenstock to witness the inner workings of the Birkenstock facilities in the German towns of Bernstadt and Goerlitz. I also became one of even fewer people to create an official custom Birkenstock, a one-off design produced in-house that only I will ever own. Now, I can imagine that most other folks wouldn’t want to own my shoe. That’s their problem.
Birkenstock is similarly single-minded, a company that has always driven in its own lane. Even inviting small groups of journalists and content creators to its remote factories was less a bid to burnish the brand than to emphasize just how much Birkenstock owns its manufacturing process (absolutely everything, minus the harvesting of raw materials, is done in Germany). The company didn’t even limit the invite to devotees. One of my travel companions had never owned a Birkenstock!
I, meanwhile, became a true Birk head a decade or so ago. I was living in Japan and realized that some of the only shoes that could fit my US11-sized feet were Birkenstocks sold in a “big and tall” store. I know and love it all, from the weirdo models that time forgot, like the Athens and the Mississippi, to the discontinued lines like Footprints, which produced Birkenstock sneakers, and Ockenfels, which put Birkenstock footbeds on kitten heels. I am a certified Birken-freak.
I love Birkenstock because it is authentic. Cringe buzzword, yes, and one that might seem misplaced. After all, this is a company that’s majority owned by a branch of luxury giant LVMH, that’s publicly traded, that makes a shoe so popular it has earned some 32 million TikTok mentions. But Birkenstock is still the same company it has always been. Its reps are either unaware of or indifferent to the trends kicked up by its shoes, which are still made in Germany and have barely changed over the past several decades. The Boston clog, which turns 60 next year, has only been iterated upon, not fundamentally changed. Birkenstock newness almost exclusively comes by way of new uppers or retooled archival shapes.
Birkenstock’s footbed — its core innovation — is non-negotiable, employees told me. Some said they think of Birkenstock as a footbed company rather than a shoe company. Sandals had existed for ages, but Birkenstock was first to create a base that meets the human foot where it curves and bends. Konrad Birkenstock made the original footbed, a blue plastic insert that filled in the gaps between foot and shoe. His invention was updated by his son Karl into the modern footbed, but it still informs much of what the company does, from the color of its packaging to the shade of the painted pathways on its factory floors. Birkenstock’s legacy is more literally shaped by the wooden lasts Konrad created while researching the foot. A modern iteration of a last-equipped machine he devised is still used to create that distinctive, roomy Birkenstock toebox.
Both factories were models of efficiency. Workers slathered soles with glue, riveted buckles to straps, and cut sheets of leather into semi-recognizable sandal shapes, depending on the facility. In Bernstadt, Birkenstock creates its components and, in Goerlitz, those pieces become complete shoes, with workers hand-applying leather linings to footbeds or sending soles through automated machines that spray and dry layers of protective coating. This is German engineering for little leather sandals.
My group of visitors gathered in a separate nook to create our own shoes. The footbeds were provided for us, which was nice; these things are a complicated pile of jute, cork, natural latex, and leather that I’d prefer not to assemble myself. Expert craftspeople, including a 30-year master shoemaker, were on hand to help. Normally, it takes two days to finish a Birkenstock. We did it in four or five hours using a few specialized machines and the trained hands of people who’d been doing this for longer than some of my fellow guests had been alive.
First, we selected the material. As a truly special boy, I was keen to find something that no one else would own. We dug into a spread of leftover fabric scraps where, buried beneath some croc-stamped leather, I found a small roll of red suede printed with a snakeskin pattern. Excellent. Even my guides had never seen this before.
The material was cut to size, glued, fitted to the black-leather-wrapped footbed and shaved down by hand using a terrifying-sounding grinder. We (they) stamped the Birkenstock logo, riveted the buckles, and then glued the whole thing to the sole. (For what it’s worth, I did help with the glue.) A heat treatment sealed it all together before a press squashed this pile of stuff into a suitable sandal shape. The end result: a truly bizarre Birkenstock Arizona available only to me. I couldn’t be happier.
