• Air Wair uses 42,000 km of yellow stitching each year.
• It takes 2.5 square feet of leather to make a pair of boots.
• Air Wair now uses 10 million pairs of laces a year.
• Doc Marten has it's own official tartan named "McMarten Tartan".
• Since "Docs" is now recognised in the Oxford Dictionary, you can officially use the word in Scrabble

Dr. Martens were invented in the 1945 by a couple of Germans, Dr. Martens and Funck (engineer). Apparently Marten had a skiing accident injuring his foot. To make things easier whilst it healed, he and an engineering mate Dr. Funck set about developing a shoe with an air cushioned sole - one that would be comfy yet durable. Funck suggested selling these shoes to others, as they had sold well to German mates.

In 1958, Bill Grigg's spots an ad in Shoe Record by Martens and Funck. They were looking for a overseas companies to produce their unique sole. The Grigg family then acquired global rights to use the air cushioned sole. (Bet they are counting their dollars and thanking the beer god for that decision!). So their factory in Wollaston-Northamptonshire (England) started making the boots and shoes as we know today.

The emergence of the skinhead movement saw the first adoption by a British subculture of Dr. Martens boot. In 1968/69 skinheads wore concealed steel toe caps. Steel caps were often polished or painted white, though they were classed as offensive weapons so Dr. Martens soon banished these other styles. The 8 eyelet Air Wear brown was by far the most popular with the laces drawn through the heel tag and the trousers high enough to reveal it. Black Dr. Martens virtually were never worn until well into 1969/70. It became a fade in early 1970 and brown boots were often dyed black. Then...

The British coppers started wearing them as work shoes!!!!

With the release of "Quadrophenia" in 1973 the Mods started wearing the 1460 cherry red boots.

The Punk explosion in 1976, saw Punks wearing boots almost religiously with their bondage trousers.

In 1979, Two Tone Rude boys wore em with their pork pie hats and two tone suits.

In the 80's Grunge takes off with Dr. Martens finding yet another subculture.

The nineties saw an insurge of just about anyone wearing Doc's, damn they even sell 'em at Mather's.