The History Of Doc Martens – By Jaanu 

90s kids and grunge icons will look with favor upon the famous Dr. Martens shoe, famed for its “nonconformity” and its close association with the great music trends of the 1900s. Doc Martens are a classic case of brilliant marketing. The brand is perhaps the first to associate big important popular concepts in the public eye with an object.

It all began in 1901, with original English bootmakers in Northamptonshire, England. A pleasant instance of peacemaking gave birth to the famous shoe. Docs were born at the end of the caustic World War II when German inventors and British cobblers worked together.

It was staunchly a boot of practicality, a boot of common sense and the working class. Only after becoming a symbol of rock, and grunge, and 90s, did the shoe really become famous. The Doc Marten boot – the famous, the one and only – lasted about as long as grunge did. By the early 2000s, the boot was so unpopular that only one Docs factory in the UK remained open.

It’s perhaps an interesting reminder that when everyone in a society who believes that by embracing a popular item, they avoid conformity actually becomes a person who accepts the popular status quo. That embrace is what turns an “innovation” into an “icon.”