pictured above is Maya Wasowicz – In her coach’s opinion, Maya Wasowicz is one of the ten best karate fighters in the world. When the Polish-born athlete moved to New York at the age of eleven, she did not speak a single word of English. Her passion for sports introduced her to karate. Here, she could express herself perfectly. We talked to the Pan-American champion, who was also third in the World Championships, about her unusual career and why the 27-year-old likes to wear BIRKENSTOCKs during victory ceremonies.
In order to continue my look into why Birkenstock’s “rise” in popularity and shift into traditional sneaker stores like FootLocker and Hibbett Sports, is different from the recent growth of new category entries into mainstream sneaker stores like UGG and CROCS, I needed to try and look behind the curtain. What I found was not the investment by LVMH as the factor in growth, but the simplest forms of improvement, consistency. Using sport as the foundation for this discussion, I wanted to lead with a picture of Maya Wasowicz. Like Charlie Strong, Maya is not endorsed by Birks. I tracked down David Kahan the CEO of Birkenstock America to ask a number of questions. One of the first was,
Are all of the recent IG pics of entertainers and athletes rocking Birkenstock was product placement and endorsements?
arch Sneaker Videos:
We have NO paid endorsers. None. So even Coach Strong is the REAL deal… he became known for wearing them and we didnt send him pairs or any endorsement deal – its organic, its natural. Kanye posed for GQ, he wore HIS OWN Birkenstock Boston’s for the photo shoot. Same with Justin Bieber.
I continued with my questions, but in order to make this series work, I needed to find information on why Birkenstock was showing up not only in mainstream sneaker stores, but also in local running shops. Finding the story on Maya helped explain, but digging even deeper delivered an answer that allowed for me to explain the word of the day, Delineation. Spread the love Run, Birkenstock, Repeat, I thought the brand was about to develop a running shoe. What I discovered was David was staying ahead of the curve. CEO’s who understand that explosive growth looks good, but can be problematic, don’t look for the next trend, they look to the past to monitor why spikes happen for companies. David found that information in a 90’s spike in popularity for Birkenstock. The person who explained that spike was the man who led the charge for Hoka One One’s amazing growth, James Van Dine. James owns a consulting firm now. I needed to look at James’ history for clarification. Here is what I found:
James has been in footwear since 1979 with brands such as Reebok, Teva, Simple, UGG, Vans, Keen, Ahnu, Tsubo and Hoka. He started as a sales associate in a running store, held many wholesale positions and eventually became a co-founder of Keen and Ahnu and practically so with Hoka. He took over management of that brand when global revenue was a little over $2M and left at just under $100M 4 years later.
How Does Karate, Running and Sport Translate to Birks?
James connected a lot of dots for me, but the amount of questions deserves its own post. The most important question I asked was how he and David coordinated to look at pushing beyond the hype of collabs and fashion to recenter the brand on its history by looking at the spikes for Birks? I also asked if he was aware that Birks had done what I thought would never happen in adding the African-American demographic. James’ Answer:
Birkenstock has enjoyed teen and post sport usage before as it was a popular after sport (especially soccer) option in the 90’s – primarily in California. So it is not unheard of, though the multi gender and racial adoption is broader this time around. I believe that the comfort and orthopedic value of the product are what allows Birkenstock to continually re-surface over the years after periods of decline. I also believe that the brand has finally reached an awareness and acceptance level that will prevent any future declines of any significance.