THE FULL STORY

The history of subculture is a chronicle of being different. Back in the 1950s, when the first generation of teenagers fired up a youth revolution, their goal was to look and behave differently to their parents. Previously, young people had been stylistic carbon copies of their elders. But with the advent of first-generation rock 'n' roll and also Teddy Boys, a generational schism cracked open that would never again be rendered shut.

On the surface, the Griggs family of Northampton in the English Midlands was seemingly a part of this reviled establishment. Making boots since 1901 in the heartland of British shoe-making, the family was successful, established, respected. Scratch the surface a little, however, and it's clear that the Griggs clan actually possessed certain characteristics that would in the future become essential identifiers of any self-respecting youth phenomenon: they were free thinkers and they were different

Why different? Because the Griggs family didn't accept what had gone before as a rigid template for the future. The past was largely a reference book of ‘old' ideas to rebel against. It was this spirit of innovation that coursed through Bill Griggs' veins as he sat in his Cobbs Lane office one day in the late 1950s flicking through an issue of Shoe and Leather News magazine, only for his eyes to fall upon an advert by a German duo looking for overseas partners for their revolutionary new air-cushioned sole.

Munich-based Dr Maertens and his university friend Dr Funck were also different. Inventors, mavericks, free-thinkers, ditto. In response to a foot injury on a ski-ing trip, they'd invented an air-cushioned sole and were looking for like-minded innovators. Griggs contacted Dr Maertens, a name was anglicized, a plan hatched and a legend born on April 1st, 1960.

When the first pair of Dr. Martens boots rolled off the production line on that day, it was on to a British high street where youth tribes were still a rarity. Not for long: the next four decades saw the time-bomb of subculture explode across the globe as a series of tribes sprang up from their respective undergrounds, each new incarnation heralding a burning desire to be different to what had gone before.

In those early years, however, there are two distinctive and pivotal moments when Dr. Martens and youth culture became melded together, inseparably as it turned out. First up was the early skinhead, a multi-cultural, ska-loving homage to the British working classes, mimicking the dress sense of the working man with an obsessive attention to detail ? style was everything. Up until then, the Dr. Martens boot had been sold mostly as reliable working men's footwear; therefore it made the perfect choice for the skinhead. And so Dr. Martens was wrenched from the factory floor into youth culture and, for the brand, nothing would ever be the same again.

A few short and volatile years later, Pete Townshend deliberately donned a pair of black 1460s on stage with his incendiary band The Who, as an unashamed indicator of his affiliation with working class pride. When Townshend windmilled and jumped around in his DM's, the young world watched. This was in an era of flower power and dandyish psychedelia; Townshend looked … different. Now Dr. Martens had a torch-bearer who was at the very heart of youth culture.

Townshend has said that he used to go to bed on tour with two things: ‘A cognac bottle and a Dr. Martens boot.' This almost peculiar personal affection for the boot is not exclusive to The Who's guitarist. It is in fact at the very core of the brand's enduring popularity and it also ensured that over the coming decades, when each subsequent youth subculture feverishly burned the trappings of the previous 'fashion' or 'movement', they frequently saved their cherished Dr. Martens from the flames, clutching them to their collective chest. So when punks came along, angry at a lack of opportunity and defiantly individualistic, they pulled DM's on for the battle; when Two Tone fans spent hours choosing just the right suit, a crisp and clean pair of three-hole 1461 shoes was an essential accompaniment; and when Britpop kids might have kicked against grunge's apparent apathy, a pair of cherry red 8-holers was often the perfect companion.

Once the genie had been let out of the bottle back in the 1960s, the vapours of Dr. Martens' rebellious spirit could not be contained and the boot seeped into every corner and crevice of youth culture. Consequently, the subcultures who have championed Dr. Martens reads like a Who's Who' of youth culture: skins, punks, two tone, Oi!, hardcore, psychobilly, goth, industrial, grebo, grunge, Britpop, emo … the list goes on.

Of course, Dr. Martens has not been immune to the brash self-expression of youth: so the boots are often worn with the quarters flapping open, deliberately unpolished and scuffed; or perhaps laced rigidly and precisely, with a military sheen on the toe. Maybe left plain or else customised individually … and so on. Each to their own. Each pair different. This is where that moment of magic back in late 1950s Northampton truly comes into its own ? what the Griggs family created was a watershed silhouette, an off-the-shelf design classic that has quite literally allowed generation after generation to paint its own personality on to those humble uppers, sometimes literally.

With the explosion of technology in the 1990s and into the new Millennium, youth culture changed exponentially. It's fair to say that the so-called ‘tribes' are not so visible anymore, often populating the ether of the internet rather than the streets of the underground. Youth culture in the 21st century is a very much more complex entity, more fluid and certainly more intermingled. Some people claim ‘there are no haircuts anymore' and in a sense that is true. But there is certainly no lack of invention, rebellion and individuality, perhaps now more than ever.

This post-modern generation is far more media-savvie than their predecessors too. They dip into a stylistic ‘Pick 'n' Mix' of fashion and subcultural history to create a look, sound and lifestyle that appeals. Nothing is off limits. Inevitably, some classic looks become misappropriated and demeaned, that's unavoidable and unpreventable. Increasingly, the brands that survive this potentially fatal mass dissemination are those that are genuine. Marketing cheque books can buy screen time or magazine space, but not authenticity. When I first met the current Dr. Martens chairman several years ago, he turned up in a scooter boy's green parka, driving a Mini with a Union Jack on the roof and wing mirrors. Different, I thought.

The inventors of the Dr. Martens air-cushioned sole; the Griggs family; every youth subculture that has ever existed ? they all have one common denominator, a primal urge to be different. Modern youth culture is now unrecognisable from the 1950s ? in some ways from the 1990s even ? and yet the next chapters of the history books will be written by exactly the same kind of personalities who penned the memoirs of the first fifty years of subculture. Namely people who want to be individuals, who want to be expressive, rebellious, free-thinking … different. That word again.

And when they learn from the footsteps of their predecessors and step into a future of their own making, they might just do it in a pair of Dr. Martens …

DR.MARTENS TIMELINE

벤자민 그릭스(Benjamin Griggs) 와 셉티머스 존스(Septimus Jones)는 영국의 노샘프턴셔 윌러스턴 에서 부츠 제작 파트너 관계를 맺는다. 초기 수십 년 동안 그들의 부츠는 노동자와 군대에 의해 사용되었다.

독일 태생 클라우스 마틴 박사(Dr. Klaus Maertens)는 뮌헨에서 에어 쿠션 밑창(air-cushioned sole)을 발명, 그의 오랜 친구 허버트 펑크 박사(Dr. Herbert Funck)와 독일 공군 비행장에서 폐기 된 고무를 사용하여 생산을 시작한다. 그들의 첫 번째 공장은 1952년에 열린다.

빌 그릭스(R.그릭스 주식회사의 당시 회장)는 이전에 독일 의사에게 연락하여 그들의 혁명적인 새로운 에어 쿠션 밑창에 대한 라이센스를 취득했다. 그릭스 패밀리(The Griggs family)는 인상적인 노랑 웰트 스티치, 투톤으로 자연스럽게 연결되는 엣지 아웃솔 그리고 검은색과 노란색으로 ‘AirWair with Bouncing Soles'(빌 그릭스의 필체)라고 쓰여진 힐루프를 이용하여 굉장히 매력적인 부츠의 디자인을 했다.
영어식 이름 닥터마틴(Dr. Martens)으로 첫 닥터마틴 8홀 부츠를 1960년 4월 1일 영국 그릭스 가문의 윌러스턴 공장에서 생산을 시작했다. 탄생의 그날을 표시하고자 그 제품을 1460으로 부르게 되었다. 처음 몇 년간은 주로 공장 노동자, 경찰, 우체국에서 일하는 사람들이 신었고 1461년에 3홀 슈즈가 소개되었다.

1460부츠는 1960년대 후반에 노동자 계급의 긍지를 가진 비트가 강한 서인도 제도의 팝 음악(ska)을 사랑하는 다문화 스킨헤드들에 의해 받아들여졌고 전설적인 밴드 ‘The Who’의 기타리스트 피트 타운센드(Pete Townshend)가 무대에서 신었다. 이런 중요한 사건들이 1460부츠를 노동계층의 신발에서 젊은이들의 서브컬쳐 아이콘으로 이동시켰다.

글램, 펑크, 투톤(스카-펑크 믹스추어 무브먼트), Oi(길거리 노동자들의 펑크 하위 장르)!, 초기 고스(Goth)의 시대에 청소년 하위문화 분파는 무수히 많은 집단으로 나눠졌다. 닥터마틴은 반란과 자기 표현의 상징으로 반체제 그룹에 의해 지지를 받았으며 1460부츠는 영국의 젊은이 문화를 대표했다.

맥스의 아들 스테판 그릭스(Stephen Griggs)가 80년대 초에 사업에 참여하여 닥터마틴이 대체문화와 개성의 대명사가 되고 DM의 이야기가 해외에 전파되기 시작한다. 1970년대의 집단들은 현대판 스쿠터보이, 사이코빌리과 그레보 등 여전히 많은 젊은이 문화에 DM의 바통을 건네 준다. 이들은 착색 된 레이스, 스프레이 도장, 낡은 가죽, 병맥주 뚜껑, 꽃 무늬 그림 등으로 본인의 개성대로 닥터마틴을 꾸몄다. 1984년, 부츠는 미국에서 판매되면서 서브컬쳐 진화의 새로운 장이 시작되고 태평양 연안의 핵심으로 떠오르기 시작한다.

그런지가 세계적인 주류 음악이 되면서 닥터마틴의 시대가 왔다. 그런지는 브리티쉬팝의 정반대의 느낌이지만 두 부류가 1460부츠를 열정적으로 받아들였다. 닥터마틴이 의류와 맥마틴(McMartens) 타탄을 런칭하고 런던 코벤트 가든에 플래그십 스토어를 열었다. 1993년 그릭스 주식회사의 마케팅 부문 에어웨어 인터내셔널이 세계적인 문화 현상의 상업적 영향을 반영한 Queen's Award의 수출상을 수상했다.

닥터마틴은 뮤직페스티벌과 축구클럽후원에 몰두하며 다양한 컴필레이션 음반을 발표하기도 하였다. 1999년 하반기에는 노래, 문화와 연관성을 설명하는 연대기가 실린 커피 테이블 책을 만들어 닥터마틴의 40주년을 기념했다. 글로벌 신발 판매는 2억 5천만 파운드를 기록했다.

닥터마틴의 마흔 번째 생일은 분명 축하 할 일이지만 이후 곧 많은 문제들이 생겼다. 세계적으로 새로운 매장들을 열지만 매출은 2001년에 감소하기 시작하며 닥터마틴의 암흑기가 시작된다. 2002 년까지, 그릭스 주식회사와 에어웨어 인터네셔널은 판매가 급격히 떨어지면서 거의 붕괴되었고 한 군데를 제외한 모든 영국 공장이 파산을 막기 위해 문을 닫았다.

지미 추, 비비안 웨스트우드, 폴 스미스, 제스퍼 콘란, 올라 킬리 등과 같은 유명한 디자이너 브랜드는 클래식한 1460부츠를 커스터마이징함으로써 역사를 재해석했다. 2005 년에는 R.그릭스가 ‘Turnaround of the Year'상을 받았다.

매출증가와 함께 착용하는 유명인이나 음악 스타가 늘어나는 등 세계적인 추세로 닥터마틴이 부활하였다. 2007년에 코벤트 가든 닐 스트리트에 새로운 런던 매장이 들어섰고 원조 콥스레인의 노샘프턴셔 공장에서는 닥터마틴의 가장 처음 스타일을 복제한 한정판 ‘빈티지’ 라인을 생산하기 시작한다.

50년간 수많은 서브컬쳐의 분파들, 연예인, 음악가와 자유 사상가와 함께해 온 닥터마틴은 50주년을 맞았다. 많은 걱정과 의심을 뒤로하고 판매는 다시 반등하기 시작했고 그 어느 때보다 기대되는 닥터마틴의 60주년을 향한다.