Beloved Birkenstocks

Birkenstocks are my absolute favourite brand of shoes in the world. I got my first pair of Birkenstocks (they were sandals) the summer of 1997 when I was 13. My mom had been wearing them for as long as I can remember so I'm not sure why I waited until I was 13 to get my first pair but I fell in love then and haven't looked back. I've gone through so many different pairs of sandals. Last spring, I went to buy some new ones and decided to try out a new style.

This is the new style

I'm so glad I did as I love these new ones and I received tons of compliments on them :) My old ones (of which I had several pairs) looked like this

 

 and while these ones are great, I prefer the new style. It was funny because when my mom and I went to buy them (we go to this shoe store called Dorfer Shoes on Dupont St in Toronto which is owned by a mom and daughter (I think) and which has very odd opening and closing hours. The daughter especially likes to talk but she's very nice) we asked her if it was a new style. The woman (the daughter) told us that people kept asking that but no they had been around for a long time. Odd, because I had never noticed them before in all my years of buying Birks.

My biggest problem with Birkenstocks is that I wear out the soles (despite the fact that I love walking, I sometimes drag my heels when I walk which causes me to wear down the heel part of whichever shoes I happen to be wearing), which are made of cork. I wear them out so badly I get holes in the cork and then they are unwearable. It's possible to get your shoes re-soled but you have to time it exactly right. There comes a moment when it's impossible to re-sole them and then you have to wait for the holes to happen and then you have to go buy another pair.

My very favourite kind of Birkenstocks (although it's really really hard to have a favourite as a I love them all) are the clogs. On my fifteenth birthday, way back in January 1999, my mom gave me my very first pair of navy blue suede clogs and I practically lived in them for the rest of high school. Navy blue is my favourite colour. And I love slip on shoes. And they just look great with everything. I went through 2 other pairs until age 26.  Then, much to my dismay, I discovered sometime around age 24 or 25 that Birkenstock (the company) had stopped manufacturing navy blue clogs. You could get them in brown and black and even red I think (and various shades of brown as well) but no more navy blue. I was crushed. I contemplated getting a different colour but my heart wasn't in it and so for a while I was clogless. Then, in May 2010, I went to Japan on a trip with my parents. Near the beginning of our trip we went to Hiroshima and we came across a Birkenstock store. We went in, and much to my delight they had navy blue clogs! I was so glad I hadn't decided to buy a different colour pair. These ones aren't exactly the same as the pairs I had before because the soles are white, not brown. I don't really know why they're white, and I don't know if navy blue is popular in Japan and that's why Birkenstock Japan decided to keep making navy blue ones. And the salespeople didn't speak English and I don't speak Japanese so I wasn't able to ask these questions. I was just so grateful and happy to find the shoes I wanted. I think the sales people could tell. I was smiling so hard and they seemed happy for me.

Here they are! Japanese Birkenstock Navy Blue Clogs

Here is their white sole

My second biggest problem with Birkenstocks is the way the selection in Canada is way worse than in the US. Dorfer Shoes gets the catalogues for both Canada and the US and the US gets so many more Birkenstock varieties. Dorfer often orders the shoes directly from Germany but it's annoying sometimes to have to go through the store and wait for the shoes to come from Germany when if I were in the US I could just order them directly from the Birkenstock USA website. The woman from the store says the US gets more varieties because it is just a bigger country but it's still annoying. I also hate the way Birkenstock has discontinued two of my favourite pairs (the navy blue clogs and see below for the other discontinued line). I don't get why! Navy blue is such a classic colour and I don't get why they would discontinue it. Even though I was thrilled to buy the navy clogs in Hiroshima, I haven't been able to enjoy them as much as I would have liked. I am scared to wear them for fear of wearing them out and missing that magical window of re-soling. I know that's silly but I can't help it. In the almost three years since I've bought them, I've probably only worn them outside a handful of times and instead have worn them as inside winter shoes the past few years. But even then I don't wear them that often. It's sad. They are my favourite shoes (although I have to admit I prefer the non-white sole) and I really should wear them more!

Sometime in 2009, my mom bought a pair of these Birkenstocks.

I liked them so much I decided to buy a pair myself in the spring of 2010. I love them!! I think of them as my Birkenstock running shoes. They look good with a variety of things, are super comfortable and are really practical - and normally I hate tying shoe laces! But I love these shoes. Unfortunately, I found out last spring that Birkenstock discontinued the line. So I just hope I never wear them out. They have a rubber sole as opposed to a cork one like other Birkenstock shoes so that's a bonus for not wearing them out.

 Then there are my black "London" (that's their official name - all Birkenstock shoes have names (I think) many named after cities but the only name I can remember is "London") Birks. Although I actually don't have a pair right now. My last pair was so worn out and old I threw it out in the fall and have yet to buy a new pair. I love these shoes though!!!! And I will definitely buy a new pair maybe over the summer so that I'll be all ready to wear them in the fall. The first few months I was in Paris in 2007 I didn't have any with me because I was between pairs. My parents came to visit in April and I asked my mom to bring me a new pair. I was so happy she did and proceeded to wear them almost every day. I'd been wearing an assortment of other shoes (and some boots) in Paris until then - which were mostly good but sometimes hurt my feet - and I was so happy to be back in my wonderful black Birks. I have two other stories surrounding these shoes: the History graduate department advisor/coordinator at UT Austin, M., complimented me on these very shoes multiple times and I always encouraged her to get her own pair. Finally, I saw her one day and she was wearing her own pair! Yay! Another time, several years ago now, my mom had a party at our house for someone from her work. It was quite crowded at our house and everyone's shoes were strewn around the front hallway. My dad actually had to leave early to go his own work event and I was driving him downtown. I put on these very shoes and a guest at the party came up to me and said "I think you're wearing my shoes." I told him I didn't think so but then we discovered that he had actually worn the exact same shoes to the party. I was wearing my own pair (we located his) but it was funny.

The London

This guy I knew in grad school, G., once spoke sort of disparagingly about this prof who I TAed for (and really really liked) commenting on how he always showed up to teach in jeans and birkenstocks. That comment made me think of this US political ad I saw once (made by a Republican of course) attacking Birkenstock wearing liberals in Vermont. I always find comments like that very funny because a) I'd be happy to be considered a Birkenstock wearing liberal professor :) and b) because I don't really understand how Birkenstocks became a dirty word for right wing people.

While google-imaging around for pictures for this post, I found this:

It's funny but it also makes me think that Birks are way less non-mainstream these days. I remember feeling so cool when I was 15 because I was the only person I knew with those navy blue blogs, but then more and more people from my high school started wearing Birks (luckily no one picked navy blue :) ) and I didn't like it. And sure enough I see them all over now. I also no longer (happily I have matured) feel annoyed that others wear them. In fact, I really like seeing fellow Birkenstock wearers around. I know their feet must be so comfortable.  I am pretty much 100% sure they will always be my favourite type of shoe and I look forward to many more pairs to come.