History of Teva Sandals

Mark Thatcher is the founder and owner of Teva, the company that has now become a well known name in the business of sandals. While working as a rafting guide in the Grand Canyon, he noticed that most of the boatmen wore athletic shoes or hiking shoes while in the river and he himself wore thongs or flip flops.

There are disadvantages of wearing both kinds of shoes in water. Athletic shoes or hiking shoes get too wet, leading to gravel and fungus on the wearer's feet while flip flops or thongs can get out of the wearer's feet very easily while running.

Mark Thatcher spent some time in designing a special sandal which had a nylon ankle strap for supporting the wearer's feet but it was same as the shape of a thong. Fortunately, Velcro material was also invented at the same time when Thatcher was looking for a substitute for thongs. Velcro was used by him for binding the sandals with the foot of the wearer with a Velcro strap around the ankles. Once made this sample, he was aware that he did not have sufficient finances to start his own manufacturing process and thus, he needed to look for a manufacturer for his sandals.

Initially, only 200 pairs of sandals were sold in the first year mainly because people complained about their thong style straps. Some people also got blisters between their first and second toes because of the straps. Next year, American youngsters started finding them hot and fashionable and thus, their sales increased manifolds instantly.

At this time, Mark Thatcher and Deckers Corporation became partners and eventually, Deckers also got exclusive rights to the Tevas with their patent for the basic design. They also got trademark for Tevas as the brand name.

A re-designing of the Tevas was done by Deckers in 1988 and a new strapping system was also developed, following which Hurricane, the first model in this line, was manufactured. There were three parts in this new system of strapping: the toe post, the side strap and the heel strap. This design is still followed by the sandals produced by Teva even today.

All the sandals produced by Teva today are very comfortable to wear and are free from causing any foot related problems for the wearer. The soles of these sandals are harder and thus, they provide better grip to the wearer while walking on wet surfaces and even while in water.

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