They can be found and heard in many fashionable districts, displayed in stores and slapping the heels of fashionable feet.
Dr. Scholl’s Exercise Sandals, those therapeutic wooden flip-flops that were as much a part of the 1970s as Volkswagen Bugs, shawls and gas lines, are making a loud comeback.
Out of production for nearly a decade, the single-strap shoe has re-emerged in the United States, vaulting itself out of pharmacies, where they were once sold next to foot treatments, and into the trendiest of shoe purveyors.
Originally marketed as a wonderful way to tone the calves of those wearing the sandal just by walking, Dr. Scholl’s are being sold as a hip summer shoe, soon to be available in black patent leather, shiny white, lime, lemon, cherry red, tangerine and bright blue, as well as the traditional navy, white and beige. The company says the sandal will be available soon with a softer newbuck strap. Otherwise, the shoe is still the same as it ever was.
“This is definitely the year for Dr. Scholl’s Exercise Sandals. We actually sold out of a lot of sizes and colors this year. Right now, we’re making them like crazy,” said Lisa Hanly, marketing director for Pagoda Trading Co., the St. Louis-based license holder of the product. “As fashion usually goes, people are more interested in the way they look. A lot of people understand the retro, fun side of it, too. Personally, they do feel good. But I don’t think a lot of people care about that. They want to look cool.”
The shoe was invented by Dr. William Scholl in 1961 with the promise of exercising the leg with its exclusive “toe grip” design carved out of a beechwood platform. This Dr. Scholl was the British-born nephew of the Dr. Scholl who founded the company in Chicago in 1907.
Although already out of favor for a number of years in this country, the product was discontinued in 1985.
In 1991, Pagoda bought the rights to license the shoe in America from N.J.-based Schering-Plough HealthCare Corp., which had bought the Dr. Scholl company in 1979.
The shoes were first marketed in the United States and the United Kingdom in 1965. Though less than 50,000 pairs were sold in the first year in the States, national sales climbed to 1 million pairs by 1972.
Pagoda, which is not disclosing sales figures, reintroduced the shoe in America in 1993.
It didn’t take long for fashion designers Michael Kors and Isaac Mizrahi to send models clunking down the catwalks in Dr. Scholl’s and for Vogue to photograph models wearing the sandals with lovely linen dresses on location in Venice.
While the shoes are all the rage in Europe – their popularity never waned among Germans and Italians – high-profile Americans such as actress Cybill Shepherd, model Cindy Crawford and talk show host Ricki Lake are all wearing them again.
Dr. Scholl’s are branching out beyond trendy retailers, hitting mainstream mass merchants such as Wal-Mart. They are also sold by mail order through the Vermont Country Store.
Pagoda Trading Co., a division of Brown Group Inc., maker of Naturalizer and Buster Brown lines, would not disclose Dr. Scholl’s sales or how many units sold.
But some would argue that trying to break in the sandal, with its stiff – albeit padded – adjustable leather strap might send you to the pharmacy seeking a blister remedy.
