While many inventions are deemed "accidental discoveries," the air-cushioned sole was, in fact, the result of a real mishap rather than a metaphorical one. In 1945 the young Bavarian doctor Klaus Maertens had a skiing accident, and in order to speed up his recovery he devised a shock-absorbing shoe. Its sole has cushions of trapped air that constantly stimulate the muscles and tendons of the person wearing it. The principle of pressure and counter pressure mimics the effects of an elastic insole, thereby protecting the joints.
Two years later, Maertens and a friend, engineer Dr. Herbert Funck, set up a company to sell the shoes. But while his innovation—marketed as orthopedic footwear—was well received by the medical world, it was not considered fashionable. That changed when Maertens and Funck placed ads in international trade magazines. Bill Griggs—a producer of army and working boots in Northamptonshire, England— spotted one of them and bought the global rights to the new sole in 1959. The following year, on April 1, 1960, he launched his new 1460 boot (the name deriving from the date of the launch), which incorporated Maertens's sole as well as the newly designed yellow stitching that was to become the hallmark of the anglicized Dr. Martens Air Wair brand.
Initially popular with postmen, dustmen, and factory workers in England, the shoes were soon adopted by subcultures such as skinheads and punks, who considered the brand's working class image ideal for their protest attitudes. After a sales slump in the late 1990s, the shoes have become popular again.
