After Almost 250 Years, Birkenstock Has Officially Found Its Cool
Yesterday, Birkenstock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time in its 249-year history, and we saw the cork-soled sandal manufacturer hit a market capitalization in the billions — $7.5 billion to be exact.
While 12.6% short of its valuation, it's a testament to how popular the German label has become. If you'd told any fashion-conscious person that the purveyor of frumpy sandals would be worth that much 15 years ago, you'd no doubt have been met with laughter.
Once a cardinal fashion sin, loved only by those willing to trade foot support with style, the brand's image has taken a full 360. This is proven not only by its billion-dollar valuation yesterday, but also by the LYST Index — a quarterly report that tracks online shopping behavior — released on the same day.
The third quarter of 2023 saw the Arizona sandal sitting in the fifth spot of the 10 hottest products, marking the third time that model itself has been listed in the top 10 and the eighth time a Birkenstock item has made the cut.
For this quarter, LYST pointed towards the Barbie Movie as the culprit for rising interest, with the brand's feature in the viral blockbuster causing a 110% increase in searches for Birkenstock Bostons in the 48 hours following its release. This clever product placement might have influenced searches in the short term but it's a larger, continued PR effort that continues to shine Birkenstock in a new light.
According to LYST, searches for the brand are up 48% in the last year and a big part of this is thanks to its collaborations.
While we've moaned in the past about being fatigued by the number of fashion collaborations that get released (you honestly can't go a day without a new link-up between two brands being announced), Birkenstock is proof that they work.
A quick browse over our news feed in the past five months shows that the brand has collaborated with Dior, Fear of God, Balenciaga, and The Row most recently — many of whom are frequent collaborators that Birkenstock continues to work with thanks to their success.
And only last week it added another name to its long list of collaborators: the high-end home goods label Tekla. This saw the brand release its popular footwear models with soft, fluffy linings (and a retail price just shy of $500) as well as new takes on Tekla's popular pajama sets — the first-ever full clothing collection for Birkenstock. The footwear manufacturer's newfound popularity has not only seen it double down on sandals but also expand into clothing.
These collaborations, from Rick Owens in 2019 to the consistent stream of big names it's able to pull today, have undoubtedly changed how the brand is perceived. It's no longer creating functional sandals found only in rural Germany, but high-end footwear that can sell out with four-digit price points — just look at the case of the Diorkenstock.
It's not just its collabs that are hot commodities, though — it's also the mainline, general-release models. Last year, Birkenstock's Boston model (a suede mule that can be found plastered on Instagram curation accounts) was flying off shelves. Luxury e-tailer Yoox reported that the heelless shoe was its best-selling model of 2022, and some TikTokers reportedly even paid resell prices to get their hands on a pair.
While the likes of New Balance and ASICS have gone from being dad shoes to being ironically cool to being arguably the most exciting sneaker brands currently, Birkenstock has been through almost the exact same transformation (in almost the same time frame). The only difference is that Birkenstock is doing with sandals what NB has done with chunky running sneakers.
With its steady increase in popularity over the past few years now seeing it sit as a 7-billion-dollar-plus company, the question is no longer whether Birkenstocks are cool. Now, we're asking how much longer it can stay in the limelight — and I'm hedging my bets on at least another century of hyped sandals.
