MEPHISTO - 60 years of success. The story of an exceptional brand.
In 1965, Martin MICHAELI founded MEPHISTO with the ambition of creating the best shoes in the world.
The idea for the name was born in Sessenheim, the village where Martin Michaeli was staying at the L’Auberge du Bœuf. This hotel-restaurant with typical half-timbered construction also housed a small museum dedicated to Goethe, the author of Faust. The story goes that the German author fell in love with the daughter of the pastor, at the end of the 18th century, when he was a law student in Strasbourg. Ever since, Sessenheim has been a place of pilgrimage for the admirers of the great man who revisited Faust’s myth and in which the character of Mephisto plays an important role.
"I’ve been producing shoes in France for the last two years but I have to shut down my company in Dalhunden because labor has emigrated to Germany.” This was how Martin Michaeli defended his project in 1965 at the Sarrebourg city hall. The mayoralty had a former stable dating from 1914 whose surface area would be ideal to welcome the company.
In October 1969, the new manufacturing site was ready. A garrison town, Sarrebourg made its soldiers available for the move. The new industrial site covered 1,500 m2. The facilities were ultra-modern with an automatic conveyor in the stitching workshop and an assembly line in the mounting workshop. Stocks of raw materials, soles, finished products, administrative offices.
With his savings from the time he spent in the USA, Martin MICHAELI sets up his company MEPHISTO in France and creates the MEPHISTO shoe. The moccasin becomes the spearhead of MEPHISTO. Its distribution starts in Germany, Austria, Belgium as well as in Switzerland and spreads from there over the whole of Europe.
In a decade of short-lived trends, Mephisto establishes its strategy of ‘timeless modernity’.
Mephisto invented Raglers, which combined a city shoe and a sports shoe. With a revolutionary latex sole and a new type of ultra-fast lacing (thanks to the eyelets that permitted laces to effortlessly slide through the holes), Raglers offered an ingenious compromise between the sneaker and the leather shoe.
Launch of the Trampolins family, a new range of shoes inspired by Raglers.This range had the same quick lacing and the same revolutionary sole. However, Trampolins were distinguished by their propulsion-effect heel that cushioned the shock, and stored the energy of the impact to subsequently restore it during the foot’s “push” phase.
Mephisto excels in technical research so that specific shoes can be proposed for certain sports activities. With the Trekking family, a whole new generation of mountaineering and hiking shoes arrived on the market. Trekkings had the shock-absorbing heel of the Trampolins type, benefiting from great flexibility, while guaranteeing the foot’s lateral support in the shoe.
Mephisto's success is based on its wide range of designs.
… and the “Goodyear welt”. Starting in the 1980s, the brand reserved part of its collections for more urban modes in which the “Goodyear welt” was flaunted as a sign of distinction and quality. This welt (that we owe to Charles Goodyear Jr.), which appeared in the 1840s, is reserved for top-of-the-line and luxury shoes. Unlike a traditional Goodyear, the one Mephisto proposed procures an immediate comfort by instantly adapting itself to the feet.
Mephisto launches the Runoff while the planet goes crazy for sports. Aerobics, walking as a sport, fashionable outerwear...It was in this context that the major event of shoe professionals, the German GDS show, observed at this period that “the frontier between the classic shoe and the sports shoe is disappearing.” Mephisto had been making the leisure shoe its trademark for 10 years. The launch of the Runoff strengthened and confirmed this positioning.
The company exports 80 % of its production. Martin MICHAELI receives from the French state the “Oscar de l’Exportation” for the outstanding dynamism of his export business.
The formula adopted was totally revolutionary at the time: the Mephisto-Shops were not franchises because the merchants did not have to pay royalties. Their only obligation was to not sell any shoes other than Mephistos. In exchange, they received adapted furniture and above all a very powerful communication carried by the brand and its serious and quality-oriented values.
“In 25 years, they’ve toured the world.” This is the slogan Mephisto chooses to celebrate its anniversary.
Mephisto’s growth internationally, like the emergence of the Mephisto-Shops, will require a more incisive communication strategy. This led to the creation of the slogan “The world’s finest footwear,” initially intended for the American market and then used for all countries.
After Europe and Japan, Mephisto sets its sights on the United States in 1985. This was only the beginning. Soon, “The world’s finest footwear” would produce over a quarter of its shoes for the American market.
Martin Michaeli founded Mephisto in 1965. At the end of the 1990s, his two children, Stéphanie and Marc, join the company.
To handle the increase in orders, a new production site has to be created. With its ultra-modern equipment and its 17,000 m2 of space, the Portuguese factory contributed an invaluable and precious reinforcement to the Sarrebourg facility. Over 11,000 pairs of shoes were now made every day by 1,500 employees.
The technologies that Mephisto has developed, since the brand’s creation, aim at improving walking conditions.
New technologies, inventiveness, innovation and respect for morphologies are expressed in the timeless collections that constitute the brand’s identity. “Walking is living” was one of Mephisto’s first slogans. This assertion is truer than ever today.
The SOFT-AIR TECHNOLOGY is being integrated in all MEPHISTO shoes and vigorously communicated globally.
Martin MICHAELI receives from President Jacques Chirac the highest decoration which France can grant: he is promoted “Chevalier of the Legion of Honour”. MEPHISTO becomes for the second time “Best Footwear brand of France”.
At the end of the 1990s, Mephisto broadens its offering by launching three new brands.
Models with full padding between the lining and the leather, membranes to regulate the foot’s heat, a removable anatomical insole and a wider shoe contributed maxi- mum comfort.
intended for a younger clientele that practices outdoor activities. For over 10 years, the sports style of the collections and the functionality of the models have captivated a public geared toward leisure: dynamic men and women “ready for everything” like a pair of Allrounder shoes.
by proposing shoes that, thanks to a conception of the sole favoring the natural movement of the foot, guarantee total walking comfort.
After 50 years, Mephisto is represented in 86 countries and generates 80% of its sales from exports.
The opening of the 75th Mephisto-Shop in China brings the number of Mephisto-Shops worldwide to more than 800.
The Mephisto adventure, closely linked to the saga of the Michaeli family, is above all the success of a French brand, the fruit of its founder’s intuition and the know-how of an entire team. Celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary is an event for those who have taken part in developing it, first in Germany and France, then throughout the world.
The outdoors is one of the most promising sports markets and Mephisto renames its models with their rapid lacing Originals.
By opening up new creative horizons, Mephisto confirms its leading position in the world of high-quality footwear.
« These are Mephistos and possibly the best shoes you can buy! »
Sean Connery
Anonymous or famous, they are called “Mephistophiles.”They are capable of buying 14 of the same pair (like Arnold Schwarzenegger), calling a Mephisto store to have it deliver “their pairs” to them without even trying them on, certain of their choice... They readily write thank-you letters to the Sarrebourg factory (“The whole family walks in Mephistos,” “Until now, I’ve had eight pairs of Mephistos,” “My wife and I no longer wear any other shoes”...).Among famous names, there are many Americans Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Janet Jackson, Cate Blanchett, Brooke Shields, Luciano Pavarotti, Bruce Willis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jude Law ...
