Birkenstock certainly has iconic brand status, and they’ve had their 15 minutes of fame in high fashion. However, in my opinion, their expansion into bedding and skin care is a stretch, and falls into the category of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Launching a 28-SKU Birkenstock skin care line. Really?

The natural category for beauty is hot right now, so one could conceptually understand how this “opportunity” came into being. However, the window of opportunity for Birkenstocks to tap into their loyal fan base may have passed. The natural/organic/clean beauty category has worked hard to shake off the crunchy-granola image. The result is brands like Drunk Elephant that are thoroughly modern in look and formulation philosophy, appealing to the highly evolved beauty consumer looking for clean, efficacious products.

I think the general consensus on this launch is utter confusion. I’ll give them credit for trying to make the category expansion make sense by leveraging cork as the connective tissue in packaging and ingredient formulation, but it still makes no sense in the context of today’s beauty landscape.

Read more in Racked.