60 Years of Doc Martens in the UK

Klaus Martens

On April 1^st 1960, Dr Martens boots went on sale in the UK.

Klaus Martens was a 25 year old German army doctor in World War II who, while on leave in 1945, went on a skiing break in the Bavarian Alps. 

He injured his ankle while skiing and found that his standard issue army boots were too painful to wear on his injured foot. So to ease his pain, he designed improvements with soft leather and an air padded sole made from rubber off old tyres.

                         

At the end of the war, he took some leather from a cobbler’s shop and made a further pair of boots with air-cushioned soles. This grew into a business and soon he was selling the boots, albeit initially with little success.

In 1947, along with an old university friend, Herbert Funck, he went into business in Germany producing shoes and boots using rubber reclaimed from Luftwaffe airfields. This time the shoes were marketed as an orthopaedic shoe and were a massive hit with German housewives of 40+ who made up more than 80% of sales throughout the first decade.

A further factory was opened in Munich in 1952 and by the end of the 1950s the company was thriving well in Germany causing Martens and Funck to market the business internationally.

Almost immediately UK shoe manufacturer R Griggs Group Ltd bought the rights to manufacture the boots in the UK, slightly reshaping the heel and adding the trademark AirWair along with the infamous yellow stitching.

The first boots were released in the UK on 1^st April 1960 known as Style 1460. They had an 8 eyelet cherry-red coloured, smooth leather design and indeed the style is still in production to this day.

Initially costing £2 a pair, they were popular with postmen and factory workers, but when the Who guitarist Pete Townsend wore a pair on stage at a London gig in 1966, they became a symbol of working class pride and rebellion and essential wear for skinheads and mods.