Walking As Nature Intended

The Original Birkenstock Footbed

Walk and stand comfortably for long periods of time, exercise your legs and feet or simply feel comfortable right down to your toes: your shoes are the key. When your individual foot’s anatomy is perfectly underpinned during each step, you’ll feel the positive effect throughout your entire body. The result: healthy feet, knee and hip joints, an upright posture and healthy and strong feet, allowing you to feel truly good.

The “Fussbett” (footbed) trademark was registered for the company K. Birkenstock GmbH in Friedberg on August 5, 1925 – this was a success for the inventor Konrad Birkenstock, a milestone for the company, and a sign of visible success in the field of foot health.

A Groundbreaking Step: The Origins of the Birkenstock Footbed

Konrad Birkenstock spent close to 25 years working on the footbed. In Frankfurt am Main in 1902, he invented a three-dimensional insole to complement the anatomically shaped last he had previously developed. Together, they formed his “health footwear,” which represented a revolution in shoemaking.

However, the material used – a mixture of card and leather – was not suitable for the orthopedic shoemaker’s objectives. It wasn’t flexible or elastic enough and, what’s more, it was very heavy. He therefore spent every spare minute in his workshop testing other materials. And in 1913, he came up with a new material mix consisting of tar, rubber and the first small amounts of cork. Tar and rubber made the insole more flexible, while cork made it lighter. Konrad Birkenstock offered four different flexible insoles, two of which under the name “Fussbett.”

The challenge lay in the need for the footbed to support the anatomy of the foot, unlike the customary shoe insoles, which were not anatomically shaped. Birkenstock’s insoles and footbeds therefore supported the foot’s natural walking motion by flexibly following the foot’s movements, while simultaneously continuing to support the arches.

Although some orthopedists were impressed and many customers were delighted, the spread of the flexible insole was slow and, in medical circles in particular, wasn’t able to compete with the metal insoles used primarily for healing purposes. In 1902, his idea was ahead of its time. Birkenstock’s footbed was therefore not recognized as a remedy until 1914. This was followed in 1924 by a gold medal at an orthopedists’ symposium. Although Konrad Birkenstock had been using the word “Fussbett” for his two insoles since 1909, a shoemaker in Leipzig, Ferdinand Schmeling, registered it as a trademark on December 5, 1913.

It is not known how the gruff Konrad Birkenstock succeeded in coming to an agreement with the rights holder, but Schmeling allowed him to use the trademark until 1924, when the Leipzig colleague canceled his trademark registration and Konrad Birkenstock himself registered the trademark.

Birkenstock Leads the Footbed Movement

The timing was perfect as people were beginning to realize that flexible shoe insoles were better, i.e. more comfortable and healthier, than others. Gradually, other manufacturers likewise switched to flexible insoles, and these definitively dominated by the late 1920s.

The 1920s were a golden age for Birkenstock, too: Konrad’s four children – the three brothers Carl, Heinrich and Konrad Jr. as well as their sister Catharina and her husband – all got into the insoles business, which was flourishing. Carl Birkenstock inherited his father’s passion, creativity and hunger for innovation. He worked on other materials for the footbed and strove to teach people about healthy footwear.

The Birkenstock Corporate Archive includes this original stand-up display from the 1920s. It was made available to shoe shops that sold the flexible insoles made by K. Birkenstock GmbH and to shoemakers who incorporated the footbed into shoes. The powerful symbolism of the foot in a bed is striking. The large golden question mark remains something of a mystery. But it may be that – as would often prove to be the case in the company’s history – Birkenstock was being avant-garde here, too, by presenting an ad that got people asking questions and which therefore attracted attention.