Dr. Martens
Brand of shoe. Dr., or Doc Martens boots were born in the 1940s, at a holiday resort near Munich. A German doctor, Klaus Martens, was recovering from a foot fracture, and he designed and manufactured, together with an engineer friend, an orthopedic boot that was tall and stiff in order to support the ankle. In 1959, he sold the patent to the owners of the English shoe group R. Griggs Ltd., which was established in 1901. Production of the Dr. Martens model AirWair 1460 was started in their Wolloston plant. The name comes from the launch date on the English market: April 1st 1960. Since then, the 1460 model has become the symbol of the most important youth movements, from punk to darks and from pop to the beat generation. The production was then diversified into four lines: Urban, with small logs; Classic, which includes the historic boots; Terrain, the most casual; and Street, with trendy designs. In 1994, London saw the opening of the “sanctuary,” the first flagship store. It is in Covent Garden, a large single-brand shop on four floors where it is possible to find everything under the Dr. Martens brand, from shoes to clothing, sunglasses, and stationery items. In Italy, the first single-brand store opened in Florence, on via Tornabuoni, but there are more than 1,000 authorized points-of-sale.
R. Griggs Group Limited, the English company which owns the brand, closes the U.K. plants which employ 1,068 people and moves production to China. The Group’s general manager, David Suddens, justifies the decision by calling it a new strategy to overcome recent poor performance and to guide the brand toward a revival of business. Dr. Martens sells about 5 million shoes per year worldwide.