The DIRT newsletter
A brief 1-minute, weekly email on footwear Design Ideas & Random Thoughts for shoedogs and the general footwear community.
Past DIRT articles 👇
The Beatle Boot, the Einstellung Effect and the Covent Garden Workshop That Changed British Music
In 1961 the Beatles walked into a Covent Garden theatrical shoemaker and asked for a boot that did not exist. The workshop simply made it. The story of the most replicated boot in British music history and the craftsmen who never put their name on it.
The Forgotten Story of Chuck Taylor, Post-Functional Value and the Shoe That Got Famous By Becoming Useless.
Chuck Taylor built the world's most famous shoe for forty-four years without a penny in royalties. Nike bought it bankrupt, changed almost nothing, and now makes two billion dollars a year from it. The story of how the Converse All Star got famous by becoming useless.
The Controversial Story of Feiyue, the Ship of Theseus & the Award Reviving the Ancient Craft of Shoemaking
A rubber tyre factory in Shanghai. A French marketing executive in a kung fu class. A trademark registered without permission. One shoe. Two companies. A legal standoff that has never been resolved.
The Birkenstock, Semiotics and the Ugliest Shoe in the World That Became a $9 Billion Company
The Birkenstock never changed. The meaning around it did. The story of how a German orthopaedic sandal rejected by every shoe store in America became a $9 billion company without altering a single thing about the design.