Today you will find that Teva Sandals is a division of Deckers Outdoor Corporation and its name means Nature in Hebrew.
These sandals were invented by a guy named Mark Thatcher in 1982 while he was working as a rafting guide and found that there were very few shoes available that could be worn while a person was participating in river and water activities. The problem with sneakers was that once they got wet they became very heavy and cumbersome to wear. Whereas the only other type of footwear available that people could wear when engaging in any water related activity were straps and these would slip off a person’s foot very easily.
So Mark Thatcher put in a bit of time and designed a sandal that was shaped like a strap but also came with a nylon ankle strap. He then created the first sports sandal. Once he obtained a patent for his invention, he searched for a manufacturer to produce it for him and during the first year that his sport sandals went on sale, he only sold 200 pairs. At first, however, many who started wearing these sandals complained of issues related to the style of the straps. Many of them suffered from blisters between their first and second toes from the straps. However, by the following year, the number of Teva sandals had increased considerably as many young Americans found them to be an extremely fashionable item.
It was during this time that Mark Thatcher became associated with the Deckers Corporation. However, Decker eventually obtained the exclusive rights to Tevas along with the patent for the basic design that had been granted in 1988 along with the Tevas brand trademark. At this time the sandal was also redesigned and Deckers created a new universal strapping system for the sandals they began producing. The first new design to roll off the production line was known as the Hurricane and this particular model now acts as the basic design for all Teva sandals produced today.
All Teva sandals produced today come with a 2-layer sole that has an inner sole that is softer than the outer sole and most of them now come with arch supports. Additionally, many contain microbial zinc which helps prevent the odor we often associate with athletic shoes by killing the bacteria that cause it. While the outer sole of the sandal is much harder and can also provide grip to the wearer when walking on wet surfaces. Today, the strapping system now consists of three sections. The toe cap, heel strap and side strap are connected to each other by triangular rings and each strap can go through one side of the ring, which makes them much more comfortable to wear and also causes less trouble regarding soccer problems.
