Fifteen years ago, when I was a teenager, wearing Birkenstocks meant you were flatfooted or you had no interest in attention from men. While the rest of us clip-clopped around in heels, it was only a brave few who would choose the flat sandal. Your geography teacher might wear them, or your mum when she took out the bins, but no one fashionable would be caught dead in a pair. Television and films encouraged the prejudice. Carrie Bradshaw taught us that you should never stoop so low as flats as she spent every dollar on Manolo Blahniks. And it’s not a coincidence that in Clueless, Travis, whom Cher describes as being from a group ‘no respectable girl actually dates’, has the surname Birkenstock.
I remember watching a game show in the 2000s, one of those American pyramid ones, and a contestant had five seconds left to describe his final word to his partner and win the jackpot. The word was Birkenstocks. His clue? ‘The ugly sandals that lesbians wear.’ He won the money.
When I was a teenager, I swore I’d never wear those frumpy, orthopaedic shoes. I promised myself that my first real paycheck would go on a pair of red-bottomed heels. But my teenage ideals disintegrated as I reached my twenties and thirties. I never bought those Louboutins and I regularly strut the streets in my favourite pair of Birkenstocks.
I’m not the only convert. This week it was announced that Birkenstock is valued at more than $9 billion, which would have made a teenage me assume the world had become overrun with frumpy geography students. And while millennial teenagers used to avoid Birkenstocks at all costs, now Gen Z teens on TikTok are sharing the best places to get cheap knockoff versions.
Birkenstocks, like Crocs, are part of the ‘ugly shoe’ grouping, but it’s a term they themselves reclaimed, often using the slogan ‘ugly for a reason’ when describing why they’re so comfortable. And while they might be ‘ugly shoes’, they’re certainly the chicest kind. A pair of black Birkenstock Arizonas with a dark suit, some nude Birkenstock clogs with baggy jeans, even with shorts and some thick socks – these shoes have suddenly become cool. Every celebrity from Gigi Hadid to Gwyneth Paltrow and Tracee Ellis Ross to Julianne Moore have been spotted in a pair. Another indicator of the brand’s fashion ascension is the list of designers they’ve collaborated with, including Jil Sander, Proenza Schouler, Rick Owens and Valentino Garavani. Last year they even created a line with Manolo Blahnik.
Birkenstock saw a bump in sales this summer after the Barbie movie came out. There’s a scene in the film where ‘weird Barbie’ offers ‘stereotypical Barbie’ the choice of the high-heeled shoe, symbolising the pretty faux world, or the Birkenstock, representing the real, messy one. Initially, Barbie tries to pick the heels, but by the end of the film she’s seen wearing a pair of pink Birkenstocks.
Like so many others with blisterless cradled feet, I get it. I’ve gone from not wanting to be caught dead in Birkenstocks to hoping I’m buried in them; I plan for both style and comfort in the afterlife.
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