Origin of Teva Sandals
Tuesday, 15. December 2009
Mark Thatcher is the founder and owner of Teva, the company that has now become a well known name in the business of sandals. While working as a rafting guide in the Grand Canyon, he noticed that most of the boatmen wore athletic shoes or hiking shoes while in the river and he himself wore thongs or flip flops.
Both types of footwear have drawbacks as athletic shoes or hiking shoes got wet easily and the feet of the wearers got fungus and gravel while thongs or flip flops got off the wearer’s foot while running.
After spending some time, Mark Thatcher designed a sandal in which nylon ankle strap was used to support the feet of the wearer, although the shape of the shoe was just like a thong. Luckily, Velcro material also came up during the same period when was looking for an option for thongs. He used Velcro to strap around the ankles so that the sandal remained bound to the wearer’s feet. After making this sample, he realized that he did not have enough finances to start manufacturing these sandals and thus, he needed to search for a manufacturer to produce his sandals.
In the first year of their production, he succeeded in selling only 200 pairs designed by him. This was because many people complained about the thong style straps of the shoes while some got blisters in between their 1st and 2nd toes due to the straps. In the following year, youngsters of America noticed these sandals as fashionable footwear and their sales increased over night.
In the same time, Mark Thatcher became partners with Deckers Corporation and finally, Deckers also achieved exclusive rights to Tevas along with their patents for basic design. They also received Tevas trademark as a brand name.
A re-designing of the Tevas was done by Deckers in 1988 and a new strapping system was also developed, following which Hurricane, the first model in this line, was manufactured. There were three parts in this new system of strapping: the toe post, the side strap and the heel strap. This design is still followed by the sandals produced by Teva even today.
All the Teva sandals manufactured today are very comfortable on the feet and do not cause any problems to the feet of the wearer. The soles are made much harder because of which, they give better grip to the feet of the wearer, whether he is walking on a wet surface or he is in water.
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