Hi, I’m Matt, Birchbury’s founder.
Welcome to my store.
I’m not here to slap sleek branding on a shoe and sell it to you.
I designed and engineered a much better sneaker than anything currently on the market.
I wanted to tell write this blog to tell you how I developed our flagship sneaker, Bramford.
And it all has to do with pain.
While I was attending Cal State Long Beach for mechanical engineering, I wore flip-flops all the time.
As I got closer to my 30s, wearing flip-flops on dates quickly became unattractive.
I wanted shoes that made me look professional.
I bought a pair of Aldos.
Those hurt.
I spent more money and bought a pair of Cole Haan’s, but they also hurt.
Tired of the pain, I spent $400 on a Magnanni leather sneaker.
They were made with better materials, but they still hurt.
I felt like I flushed tons of money down the toilet.
Examining the problem, I noticed the narrow toe box was the main culprit of pain.
This led me to discover barefoot shoes.
Barefoot shoots had the comforts of a wide-toe box but consistently had 3 main problems.
|
Ugly (big branding + wonky colors) |
Bad construction quality (Often using plastic in place of leather and calling it ‘vegan’ leather) |
Didn’t use proven shoe structure techniques. |
While unsatisfied with the options, I didn’t do anything about it until I was shamed at Menfluential (a men’s fashion conference that was hosted Antonio Centeno, and Aaron from Alpha in Atlanta, GA).
Feb. 23, 2019
Brian called me out on wearing improper dress shoes, informing me that my shoes were not proper dress shoes.
The grown up equivalent to ‘What are those”’
I returned to my hotel room and said to myself:
“I’m going to make my own barefoot shoes. They’re not going to look dumb, and I’m going to use the best materials”