Fashion career profile

Konrad Birkenstock

Konrad Birkenstock was a German shoemaker and the fourth generation of the Birkenstock family craft tradition. He opened a workshop in Frankfurt in 1896, developed a fully three-dimensional anatomical last in 1897 and followed it with a flexible, anatomically shaped insole in 1902. Those linked inventions established the functional idea later associated with the BIRKENSTOCK footbed. Konrad moved production to Friedberg, developed materials and registered the footbed mark in 1925. He is represented as the key product inventor rather than the sole 1774 founder, preserving the roles of earlier and later family generations in the company's long development.

Role
Footbed Inventor and Fourth-Generation Shoemaker
Nationality
German
Age at death
77
Career appointments
1
Fashion houses
1