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In order to maintain and promote healthy feet in the best possible way, your

Birkenstock Sandal has to fit perfectly. It's not often that the words

consciously healthy and anatomically fitted, have banded around in the world

of high fashion, catwalks and kuchul. The footbed with a perfect fit

and the correctly fitted straps.

But for the German shoemakers Birkenstock, comfort is bang on trend and it's

proved to be an incredibly lucrative market. So much so that John Lewis has just

placed the sandals at the top of their list for Christmas gifts this year. In the

last few weeks Birkenstock started trading on Wall Street for the first time

and it came with a huge price tag. It shares our price at $46 that values the

company at nearly $9 billion. What we'll once deride it is shoes for hippies,

anti-conformists and who knows maybe your parents and now popular with

everyone, from your shortage trendsetters to Kendall Jenner. Recently it's

iconic sandals were featured in the blockbuster movie Barbie and it's working

together with luxury brands like Dior and Manolo Blanek. So how did the

orthopedic shoe go from hippie to hipster? And what does the company's success say

...