Birkenstock has been opening up its range to more closed-toe treats fit for a cooler climate. To boot, the full collection is soon to be ready for exploring in full at a new Covent Garden home.
As with all great design innovation, here, form has followed function and the newer models see Birkenstock break into new territory through styles that riff on symbolic sportswear tropes alongside others that explore a more natural mood in textured, tactile fabrics. The physiological virtues of the Birkenstock sandal are well known but perhaps less so is the breadth of shoes that now house the patented moulded sole. From the heelless clog (known as the Boston) to the Bartlett (a sportier hi-top) and a clean, classic tennis shoe; all translate the brand’s innate combination of comfort and pragmatism with an idiosyncratic, offbeat air. With these newer additions, the main advantage as we tread head-on into the wet and chill of a great British winter is of taking that fair-weather comfort to the ever-meaner streets, the more solid styles sliding comfortably into a new season wardrobe with its heavier volumes and fabrics.
Keeping on the streets, the Birkenstock collection is now housed in its entirety at a new London flagship on Covent Garden’s Neal Street, bringing both men’s and women’s classics and their newly contrived counterparts together in one home.
