Billion Dollar Birkenstocks 💰
Birkenstock's Ascent, How Long Gone x Morjas, Design Inspiration, and more.
GM everyone. Feeling much better today!
I want to thank my friends over at YSL Beauty for sending over an incredibly generous care package to me last week. I am currently wearing Tuxedo, and it smells amazing. My girlfriend swiped the lipsticks and concealers and I think she likes those too.
In today’s letter I am covering—
How Birkenstock became a billion dollar brand
A celebrity banned from a Toronto restaurant
Signs your startup isn’t going to make it
Some events in NYC this week
Let’s go—
NEWS
Bloomberg profiled how Birkenstock went from a humble, disorganized family business to a multi-billion dollar fashion brand. Birkenstock, the creator of everyone’s favorite ugly sandal, had been a humble family business since the 1700s, being passed down in the Birkenstock family for generations. Originally, the family just made their patented footbeds for other shoes, but in the 1960s, Karl Birkenstock cracked the code and created what we now today as the modern Birkenstock, an open toed sandal. It quickly caught steam with niche communities like hippies, and grew into a modest business over the second half of the 1900s.
Bloomberg, Birkenstock Boston Made in Germany But family disputes and mismanagement brought the brand to an inflection point in the early 2010s. Oliver Reichert, an imposing outsider, was brought in to helm the flailing company, and over the course of a few years was able to cut back on wholesaling, increase manufacturing, and partner with esteemed collaborators like Rick Owens, Dior, and Stussy to reintroduce the Birkenstock to luxury consumers.
Rick Owens Birkenstock 
Stussy x Birkenstock His plan worked, increasing sales from $500M in 2016 to $810M in 2019. The Birkenstock family, which still held a controlling stake, wanted to explore a sale, which was when Reichert reached out to Alexandre Arnault, son of Bernard Arnault, who was heading Rimowa at the time. Arnault’s combined PE venture, L Catteron, bought a majority stake, and then helped take the company public last Fall. While the initial IPO was a disappointment, Reichert assured investors their total addressable market was larger than anyone could imagine, and has tried to position the company as a ‘foot-health brand’ The stock is currently up 20% If there’s one takeaway here, its that fashion is filled with stories of heritage brands hitting it big with the right business partnerships. Birkenstock has taken on a completely new audience and evolved to fit the market, and it seems to be paying off thus far. BTW I am currently wearing my Boston’s.
One of the best design agencies is launching a YouTube channel. OpenPurpose, a design partner for founders, is known for their impeccable design work on X. But now they are launching a YouTube channel to share their design explorations. If you work in branding or product design, I highly recommend checking out their videos for inspiration. The videos are super concise and I like the vacuous sound.
A Toronto restaurant is banning Zachary Quinto. Okay here is some Ossinton tea for all of my readers from the 6. Manita posted an Instagram story saying Zachary Quinto (he was in Star Trek like 15 years ago, what else?) is now banned for being insanely rude in the restaurant.
The f*cking Star Trek image in the background of their post is sending me. Honestly, this is so funny to me and more restaurants should be taking the Keith McNally approach and calling people out for suspect behavior. Let me also just say, I love Toronto.
If you’re startup CEO is going on the Bachelor, you’re not gonna make it. The contestants of the upcoming Bachelor season have been announced and one addition was raising some eyebrows on CPG-twitter. The founder of Gainful, Jahaan Ansari (s/o to
who dug this up), is going to be spending some time looking for love instead of maximizing shareholder value. chimed in to the discourse and added that Gainful is a pretty mature company at this point, but it still has me wondering how people with real, promising lives can just drop everything to go appear on a dating show? Or any reality program for that matter.
EVENTS
APC is holding a talk with Katie Holmes and Judith Touitou, their artistic director, to promote their new capsule collection. The event will be held Wednesday at 7pm at their store at 131 Mercer St. You do need to RSVP and get selected to attend. Holmes has been a die-hard APC fan since the 90s and the collection features some understated Summer attire.
Morjas and How Long Gone are collaborating on a boat shoe, and holding a launch party this Thursday at their NYC pop-up. The pop-up (435 Broome St) runs from June 4th-9th and the HLG boat shoe party is Thursday at 6pm. This is a great chance for those who want try Morjas on in-person, as the brand does not do wholesale. I love the editorial for the HLG shoe, so well done as always.
I’ll be attending both events so see you there. Okay gotta run! Have a great day and see you tomorrow.
Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, and designer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio
wild to me that contestants on the bachelor don’t get paid a cent & provide their own clothing/styling, so not only are you giving up weeks of your time - you’re paying for it.