BIRKENSTOCK celebrates 250 years
Birkenstock celebrates 250 years of tradition in Paris
BIRKENSTOCK 250 is the exclusive event – the first of its kind in Europe – that hosted its European Best Street Accounts on 20 and 21 June at BIRKENSTOCK’s Paris showroom in the heart of the Marais district.
These are strategic customers for the development of the Street Fashion channel in Europe who stand out for their strong identity – also reflected in the style of their concept stores – and for their ability to gather around them a dynamic and lively community and influence its choices. In short, true BIRKENSTOCK ambassadors.
NaturalLook, which was present at the event, considers it an honour to have been invited, confirming the very close relationship that sees the two companies proceeding side by side and in full harmony, and which makes us feel part of the German brand’s extraordinary success story since 1974, the year NaturalLook began distributing BIRKENSTOCK footwear in Italy.
The event, which coincided with Paris Fashion Week, was an opportunity to celebrate not only BIRKENSTOCK’s 250 years of footwear tradition, but also to get a preview of the focus on the SS25 collection and – above all – to celebrate the blue footbed, a tribute to the brand’s cultural and orthopaedic heritage and to reaffirm that BIRKENSTOCK’s DNA, even before being a footwear manufacturer, is that of “footbed brand”, of experts in anatomical insoles and comfort.
An evolution of this philosophy was the novelty presented for the occasion, namely The Blue Footbed Sneakers, available as a stand-alone insole for closed shoes that allows you to enjoy the original footbed experience even when you are not wearing BIRKENSTOCK footwear. A novelty also celebrated in a creative key thanks to the presence of a local artist maker who customised and decorated the insoles with logos and lettering using gold leaves, making each one a unique little work of art.
Enveloping visitors even more in the atmosphere of celebration and branding is an exhibition of still-life photographs by Henry Leutwyler with the theme #walkwithme featuring never-before-seen images from the BIRKENSTOCK archives, accompanied by original objects collected in a limited edition book, Old Mills Never Die, edited and published by Steidl Verlag, which is being released these days. During 2024, the exhibition will then travel to London, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Shanghai and Melbourne.
