Andreas Richter looks at the pile of drawings like a father would flip through the pages of a family photo album. Each sketch brings back a memory. A detail, a red pencil stroke drawn by the man he still calls “Mr. Birkenstock”. These images remind him of the many years he spent working with Karl Birkenstock.
The two men met in the early 90s when Birkenstock was looking for new production sites in East Germany. “In 1992, Mr. Birkenstock sat me down in front of a computer and said: ‘I want to produce new buckles. Show me what you can do,’” says Andreas. “My ideas must have convinced him, because he then asked me if I’d like to design new buckles with him and set up a completely new buckle production. Of course I agreed and we began a long collaboration that I really enjoyed.”
The ritual was almost always the same. Andreas’ main task was to translate Karl Birkenstock’s instructions into construction drawings that could be used to produce the buckles. “Mr. Birkenstock would fax me sketches. I’d make some comments, and he’d correct his drawings. Sometimes I had to tell him that some of his suggestions wouldn’t work in practice. Mr. Birkenstock would then think long and hard about how to make me understand that he wanted this or that to be done, but sometimes he accepted my advice,” says the young retiree with a smile.
The two men would meet regularly for several days to work on some of their projects. “I’d leave home at 8 p.m. to arrive at the company’s former headquarters in Bad Honnef at 7 a.m.,” explains Andreas, who lived in East Germany. “Mr. Birkenstock’s secretary would offer me bread rolls, and after a quick breakfast, we’d get down to work, sitting side by side. He’d draw something, I’d transfer it to the computer, and the next day we’d do it all over again. Next buckle, next shape, because usually he would come up with something new overnight!”
The Birkenstock brand was the main feature of each buckle. On the small buckles, there was only BIRKEN, on the very small ones, there was only BIRK – and that hasn’t changed until today. Every little detail was the subject of heated discussions. “Several years could pass between the first drawings of a buckle and its production in our factory,” says Andreas. Quality has its price.
In the 1980s, Birkenstock had its sandal buckles produced by a number of different companies, but each product was different, which did not satisfy Karl Birkenstock who then decided to make the parts himself. “For many people, these buckles are just simple pieces of sheet metal, but for Mr. Birkenstock, they were one of the hallmarks of the sandals,” adds Andreas. “They had to be the icing on the cake of a quality product, like the star on the bonnet of a Mercedes. I think it’s fair to say that buckles were one of Mr. Birkenstock’s main hobbies.”
“Although he claimed to be just a shoe salesman, he was a true enthusiast who developed real technical expertise over the years. When he went on a fortnight’s holiday, he spent at least twelve days visiting factories to talk to specialists and gather information. One day, during a car ride, he even confided in me that he had stacks of metal construction magazines in his toilet. When we were at a trade show – he was usually accompanied by his wife – he couldn’t stop, he would rush. His wife would run after him to brush his suit. He was always going from booth to booth, chatting to people. He often told me, ‘You’ve got to talk to people, you’ll learn a lot.’ Mr. Birkenstock was very dynamic and energetic.”
This thirst for learning and the desire to always do better led to the creation of buckles that are still one of the keys to Birkenstock’s success today. This perfectionism remains ingrained in our DNA. “Imagine selling sandals all over the world that are supposed to meet all kinds of high standards with cheap, shapeless pieces of sheet metal on them. It’s simply impossible…” As he says these words, Andreas Richter turns the pages of his thick folder filled with drawings, on which he has written a quote from Lenin: “Practice Is the Criterion of Truth”. Karl Birkenstock couldn’t have said it better.