Dr Martens Air Wair

Back in the late 1950s a Northampton based businessman called Bill Griggs was thumbing through the pages of Shoe and Leather News Magazine. His eyes fell upon an advert for a revolutionary new air-cushioned sole designed by Munich-based Dr Maertens and his university friend Dr Funck. The duo were seeking an overseas investor after conjuring up their design in response to a foot injury sustained on a ski-ing holiday.

   

Griggs, Dr Maertens and Dr Dunck arranged a meeting and on April Fool's Day in 1960 a legend was born, with a new anglicized name - Dr Martens.

 

As the first iconic Dr martens boots rolled off the production line British youth culture was still in its infancy, but over the next four decades it would explode across the globe and the air-cushioned sole would be the platform it would walk upon.

 

Very much a working man's boot in the beginning, the apparel would gain street kudos as an essential part of the uniform of the early skinhead, a multi-cultural, ska-loving homage to the British working classes, mimicking the dress sense of the working man with an obsessive attention to detail